


Time Enough For Slaying.

by steeleye



Series: It's Grim Up North. [10]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Movie xover, Time Travel, action adventure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-25 15:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7537552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steeleye/pseuds/steeleye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From what Buffy knew about time machines the whole contraption didn’t look as if it could be a time machine. Surely it should have a capsule to protect the traveller also logic suggested that time travel would use ‘wicked’ amounts of power; there wasn’t even a car battery, let alone a nuclear reactor or Flux Capacitor anywhere to be seen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Time Enough For Slaying.

By Steeleye.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or ‘The Time Machine’ (1960). I write these stories for fun not profit.

 **Crossover:** ‘The Time Machine’, 1960 version 

**Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar:** Written in glorious UK-English which is different to US-English.

 **Timeline:** Post Season 7, no comics.

 **Words:** Ten Chapters of 2500+ words each.

 **Warnings:** None.

 **Summary:** From what Buffy knew about time machines the whole contraption didn’t look as if it could be a time machine. Surely it should have a capsule to protect the traveller also logic suggested that time travel would use ‘wicked’ amounts of power; there wasn’t even a car battery, let alone a nuclear reactor or Flux Capacitor anywhere to be seen.

0=0=0=0

**Slayer Central, Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Cleveland, England. Winter 2005.**

**Friday Evening.**

Looking out of the window of her brand new office, Buffy hugged herself and sighed happily. The evenings were steadily getting lighter again, soon it would be spring and life would get a little less hectic…at least she hoped it would. Was it only three weeks since Kennedy and herself had wiped out that nest of evil, alien teenagers together? The entire mission hadn’t been one of her finest moments. If being captured by the evil, space, teens hadn’t been bad enough, being rescued by Kennedy (a fact that the younger slayer never failed to remind her of) was just adding insult to injury.

Having escaped the clutches of the murderous, mind controlling, out for world domination, adolescents. Kennedy and herself had gone back to their room (thank-you Giles for screwing up the room bookings so they’d have to share a room) at the village inn, they’d fallen into bed together and had wild-lesbian-slayer-monkey-sex. Or at least they thought they had, neither of them could quite remember, their recollections of that part of the night were, to say the least, a little fuzzy.

Next, after the world’s most embarrassing car journey home to Cleveland, Buffy had discovered that every slayer in the world had turned, suddenly (and in some cases aggressively), incontrovertibly, indisputably, undeniably…gay. It was like the great script writer in the sky had thought of an evil new plot twist and *WHAM!* you’re gay! For a moment, Buffy pondered the inappropriate-ness of the word ‘gay’ to describe her present situation.

Buffy still couldn’t work out what anyone hoped to gain from doing this; Willow hadn’t even been able to work out whether it was magic or something else that had caused everyone’s sexual orientation to change. Actually that last bit wasn’t quite true, not everyone’s orientation had been changed. Slayers who were already gay remained so and seemed no different than they’d been before ‘The Night of The Lesbians’ as it had come to be known.

Luckily, apart from feelings of confusion and distraction, most slayers had taken it in their stride. It was slayers like Violet that Buffy had felt so bad about. Vi had a nice, loving, understanding (and rich) boyfriend who she’d only recently moved in with. Suddenly she’d found she couldn’t bring herself to touch him or have him touch her; she’d arrived at Slayer Central the morning after ‘The Night’ in floods of tears, she’d not gone home since.

If it wasn’t for cases like Vi, Buffy could have found the entire affair funny (considering the other things that had happened in her life), she was quite confident that Willow and Giles would get to the bottom of it and be able to put everything right; everything and everyone would go back to normal. Until that happy day arrived they’d just have to soldier on as best they could and hopefully not do anything too embarrassing. 

Turning away from her window, Buffy walked back to her desk. Idly she ran her finger tips across the highly polish surface before sitting down in her high backed leather chair. Sighing with pleasure as the soft leather caressed her body, Buffy opened a file on her computer. For months she’d managed to run the entire slayer organisation (it was still called that because no one had yet thought up a really snappy name for it) from a cramped and cold office. It’d had cracked linoleum on the floor, her desk had been scratched and battered and her chair had squeaked alarmingly whenever she’d turned or indeed moved.

Eventually, Xander had decided that the Slayer-in-Chief needed an office which more reflected her position in the organisation. The leather chairs, plush carpets and intricately carved wooden furniture now proclaimed to all the world that Buffy Summers was a woman of importance and should be treated with the respect that she so richly deserved; at least that’s what Xander had said.

Opening her diary, Buffy checked today’s date; just one more thing to do and she’d be finished for the week. As long as there were no apocalypses, she could take the entire weekend off. The last thing Buffy needed to do was to take a couple of the young slayers out on a patrol. After completing their two week basic slayer training and before they were released back into the ‘wild’, Buffy liked to take as many of the girls as she could out on a patrol, it was like a final exam, but without all the tedious writing. Just as she was about to check who she’d be taking out there was a knock at her door.

“Come in,” Buffy called looking up from her computer screen.

The door opened to admit ‘the twins’.

“Hi-de-hi, Miss Summers!” chorused the girls in perfect harmony.

The two girls stood in front of Buffy’s desk with eager grins on there happy, innocent, scrubbed faces with absolutely no idea what effect their presence was having on the senior slayer.

“Ho-de-whatever,” was all Buffy managed to get out.

‘Oh my god’, thought Buffy, ‘not the twins!’ Already Buffy could feel her mouth filling up with saliva and her pulse begin to race. She could feel her skin flush and her hands trembled as if she had the DT’s again. It was ‘the twins’! They were so cute and identical standing there in front of her desk. Her palms itched to feel their nipples grow hard under her hand as she stroked and caressed those four large, firm breasts. They were also only fifteen, Buffy tried to control her feelings. She’d seen them arrive two weeks ago and had immediately fallen in lust with them. Since then she’d tried to keep well away from the girls; to have done anything else would have been reprehensible. It was like she was their teacher and to take advantage of that fact would have been…words failed Buffy as to just how bad that would’ve been. As bad as seducing a student at the new Sunnydale High when she’d been a school counsellor perhaps? 

“So-so, girls,” Buffy smiled nervously as she tried to keep control of her voice, “your turn to come out with me?”

“Yes Miss,” smiled the girls sweetly.

“G-good,” Buffy found herself staring longingly at their blonde pigtails and cornflower blue eyes.

Her pulse started to race again as she imagined taking the girls to a club, watching them dance together, feeling their young, nubile bodies next to hers, to…to…

“Excuse me girls,” Buffy stood up, turned and rushed into her private bathroom.

Gillian and Maddy exchanged a puzzled look as they stood there in front of the desk.

“Do you think she’s okay?” Gillian, the older girl by five minutes asked as they watched the door to the bathroom.

“Maybe she ate something bad?” suggested the younger girl.

“Yeah,” Gillian nodded her head, “that must be it, that Toad in the Hole, I think the sausages were a bit off, y’know?”

“Uh-huh,” agreed Maddy, they’d both eaten the curry instead, “hope she’ll be okay to take us out.”

Both girls had been looking forward to going on patrol with the famous Buffy Summers; other girls had been chosen to go out with Faith or one of the other slayers from Sunnydale. But they’d been lucky, they’d drawn ‘Miss Summers’ herself. Buffy was like a goddess or a rock star to the twins. They’d worshipped her from afar ever since they’d first seen pictures of her. Now they had the opportunity to actually go on patrol with her, but it looked like it was all going to be spoilt by a sausage that was past its ‘use by’ date.

Two pairs of sharp slayer ears picked up a muffled groan come from behind the locked bathroom door. The girls looked at each other, should they knock on the door and ask if everything was alright? They sighed with relief as they heard water running then the toilet flush. Moments later the door opened and Buffy walked out into her office (looking a little flushed) and smiled at the girls.

“You okay, Miss?” Maddy asked hesitantly.

“If you’re not feeling well,” Gillian looked hopefully at Buffy willing her to say everything was okay, “we’ll understand if you can’t take us out.”

“Its okay,” Buffy gave a relieved sigh, “I’m fine.”

Having come to terms with her feelings of desire for the two teenagers, Buffy did indeed feel fine, for now. They just needed to get out of her warm office and into the cold night air and kill something then everything would be alright. The girls were leaving tomorrow so she’d be able to forget about them…she hoped.

“Come on,” Buffy said more cheerily than she actually felt, “let’s go dust some vamps!”

0=0=0=0

Standing behind a bush, Buffy watched as Gillian and Maddy took down the three vamps that had been terrorising the little, run-down park. The bloodsuckers appeared confused by facing two identical slayers, it seemed to put them off their game, a fact that the girls took full advantage of. Buffy suspected the twins had been using their identical-ness to confuse people all their lives, it was like watching synchronised slaying. Maybe they could have that as a new Olympic sport?

As the last vampire turned to dust and drifted away on the raw, damp northern air; Buffy stepped out of the shadows to congratulate the girls. Hardly breaking step, she rammed Mr Pointy into the heart of a forth vamp that’d tried to pounce on her from out of the flower beds. Of course it wasn’t the original Mr Pointy, that stake was lying at the bottom of Lake Sunnydale. This Mr Pointy was one Xander had made for her to replace her favourite stake. It was a good weapon, but somehow it wasn’t quite the same, she still missed the original Mr Pointy.

“Now let that be a lesson to you girls,” Buffy slid Mr Pointy back up her sleeve, “Vamps are sneaky, just when you think you’ve got ‘em all, up jumps another one, okay?”

The girls nodded their heads; their hero worship knew no bounds. Now they’d seen Buffy actually stake something they’d have done anything for her.

“Other than that,” Buffy smiled at the two eager faces, “you did pretty well there. Good technique, nice fighting style, but I gotta warn you…don’t rely on always fighting together, go off individually and develop your own style away from your sister.” Buffy checked her watch, “Now, who’s for shopping?” she grinned like a sixteen year old, “I feel a wicked shoe craving coming on.”

“Oh yes please!” squealed the twins, all the time hating themselves for sounding like a couple of star struck eleven year olds.

“Okay then,” Buffy turned and headed towards the park gate, “lets get going.”

Walking out onto the street, Buffy looked around trying to get her bearings. They were in a slightly run down area of old Victorian houses. Although some were still occupied, (mainly by students) others were semi-derelict, a perfect hangout for vamps. They’d have to walk down the road aways until the came to the main road where they could catch a bus to the Cleveland Shopping Centre.

The CSC stayed open until after midnight on a Friday night and was a favourite haunt of the younger slayers with its cinemas, shops, cafés and amusement arcades. With so many eager young slayers frequenting the place, few but the most stupid vamps or demons bothered anyone there. The place was safe and as such Buffy found it relaxing to wander around window shopping not having to worry about fighting for her life. As she led the girls towards the road, Buffy felt something tug at her senses. Pausing she turned to peer into a long neglected garden. Through the bare, dripping branches of the trees and bushes that choked what had probably been a nice garden once upon a time; Buffy caught a glimpse of something glitter like the reflected glow of a street light.

“What is it Miss?” Maddy (or it could have been Gillian) asked as she stopped and turned to face Buffy.

“Maybe nothing,” Buffy replied distractedly as she pushed a branch out of the way and looked more closely into the jungle of a garden. “Look,” she turned to smile reassuringly at the twins, “like, its probably nothing, but I’m going to take a look. You two carry on to the bus stop and I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes, okay?”

The twins reluctantly nodded their heads.

Leaving the girls standing on the pavement (or sidewalk as her American mind still wanted to call it), Buffy stepped over the low wall that separated the garden from the street. Carefully she pushed her way between the old knurled branches of long neglected bushes until she stood at the edge of what had once been a lawn. Light was coming from one of the downstairs windows of the huge Victorian town house that stood on the other side of the grassed area.

Running silently through the knee high wet grass, Buffy came to the boarded up window from which soft orangey-yellow light escaped. Pressing her nose against the boards she peered between the planks into the room beyond. The light was so soft because the illumination came from candles and what looked like an old fashioned storm lantern. Just to the left of her field of vision, Buffy could see the edge of some sort of contraption; she smiled at her use of the Giles-ism. However, there was no escaping it, ‘contraption’ seemed to fit as a good adjective. 

It was all brass and polished wood, or at least the bit of it she could see was, Buffy moved further round the window and put her eye to a knot hole. Now she could see all of the ‘contraption’. It was indeed all polished brass and wood. Enclosed in a sort of brass rail affair was a leather chair rather like she imagined you’d find in one of those gentlemen’s clubs you saw in old films. Behind the chair was some sort of weird looking machinery and attached to that was a big (at least six feet across) convex bronze disc. In front of the chair was what could only be a control panel with levers sticking out of it at all angles. Buffy could safely say she’d never seen anything like it in her life. It was obviously some sort of machine, but she had no idea what it was for, she needed to get in there and have a closer look, Giles would want to know details.

Just as she was about to start tearing boards from the window frame, Buffy caught sight of a man inside the room. He was tall, dark haired, well built and maybe in his mid thirties. He was also wearing strangly old fashioned looking clothes. The sort of clothes that you might have seen the original occupants of the house wearing; Buffy’s immediate thought was, ‘vampire’.

Frowning, Buffy reconsidered her initial reaction, she wasn’t getting any vamp-vibe off him and the way he walked around the room taking notes in a little note book was very un-vamp-like. However, this still didn’t look like anything of the good. Men in old fashioned clothes with strange incomprehensible machines usually didn’t add up to hugs and puppies. Looking at the boards that covered the windows, Buffy gauged their toughness. They certainly weren’t slayer proof; she decided to burst in and capture both the man and his weird machine. Next she’d call Giles and leave everything for him to sort out.

“There,” she smiled to herself, “I have a plan…a good plan too.”

Without a second thought, like, it might be an idea to call Giles first, Buffy ripped the boards from the windows. By chance she’d chosen a section that had covered an old French Window. Smashing in the rotten old door, Buffy rushed at the man and pushed him up against the far wall.

“Okay, buster,” Buffy snarled holding Mr Pointy to the man’s throat, “what’s your game? Planning on opening a gateway to hell maybe?”

“My dear young woman,” replied the man as he pushed the tip of Mr Pointy away from his throat with his free hand, “such a thing, were it possible, would be the furthest thing from my mind.”

“You what?” Buffy relaxed a little, generally speaking evil wizards or whatever didn’t call her ‘my dear young woman’, that was more something Giles might say.

“Though I suppose after all the wars, society must have regressed so far as to rediscover a belief in demons and such like.”

He spoke more to himself than to Buffy.

“Wars?” Buffy released the man and slipped Mr Pointy back into his hiding place.

“Yes,” the man straightened his jacket and tie then picked up his note book from the floor. “I assume from the lack of gunfire that the fighting has stopped.” He made a note in his book as he looked Buffy up and down, “But, by your outlandish dress and the fact that you’re reduced to using wooden weapons the war obviously caused civilisation to collapse.”

“Hey,” Buffy looked down at her outfit, “watch what you’re saying about the way I dress.”

“I’m sorry my dear,” the man smiled pityingly in Buffy’s direction, “but those are not the clothes of a civilised woman. Also the fact that civilisation has fallen to a point were young women have to go out at night to hunt, well…”

“Now just a minute,” Buffy advanced on the man again and waved a finger under his nose, “now who the hell do you think you are coming in here dissing the way I dress?”

“I’m sorry,” the man held out his hand to Buffy, “I should have introduced myself before, I’m George William Henry, inventor, at your service and you are?”

“Buffy,” replied Buffy slowly still half believing this guy was a demon despite his human looks, “Buffy Summers, aka The Slayer!”

0=0=0=0


	2. Chapter 2

2.

“The slayer?” frown lines appeared between George’s eyebrows, “Is that some sort of tribal title?”

“What?” Buffy stared at the man wondering what he was talking about, “Tribal title?”

“Well, it must be obvious even to an ignorant savage such as yourself…” George didn’t get a chance to finish what he was saying; the ‘ignorant savage’ had him by the throat and choked off his words.

“Hey!” Buffy lifted the man one armed until his toes were only just touching the floor, “I’ll have you know that I went to college and everything,” Buffy got control of her temper and let go of the man’s neck, “Sorry,” she said as she let him breath again, “I just don’t like being called an ‘ignorant savage’, okay?”

“My apologises,” George rubbed his neck where Buffy’s finger marks were slowly fading, “most strange,” George scratched the back of his head as he bent to pick up his note book again. “University you say?”

“Uh-huh,” Buffy was now standing next to the machine studying it intently, “UC Sunnydale in California.”

“Oh!” George scribbled something in his book, “That explains it then.”

“Explains what?” Buffy turned her head to look over her shoulder at the man.

“This ‘UC Sunnydale’ place couldn’t be a proper university,” George explained.

“Why?” Buffy turned towards George and placed her hands on her hips.

“Well,” George sounded as if he didn’t need to explain, “You know, letting women in…its not right, no proper university should do such a thing.”

“You’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’,” Buffy pointed her finger at George as she used a phrase she’d picked up from some of the younger English slayers, “you know that, right?”

“Hm?” once again George was scribbling away in his book; it was like he was writing down everything she said.

Buffy decided to put off the beating this jerk so obviously needed; she’d thought Giles had been ‘stuffy’ (and what was the other English word, oh-yes, snooty) when they’d first met. But this guy just ‘took the biscuit’. Buffy frowned to herself; she must be turning English, she was even using English phrases in her own head now.

“Okay,” Buffy relaxed a little, she decided to find out what this guy’s game was, she gestured to the machine, “like, what’s this thing?”

“That ‘thing’,” George rushed across the room to stand protectively next to his ‘baby’, “is my greatest invention yet…”

“Well?” Buffy examined her nails while she waited for George to get to the point.

“I don’t expect an ig…” George thought twice about calling Buffy an ‘ignorant savage’ again, instead he chose, “young woman, such as yourself to understand…”

“Oh, you’d be totally surprised at what I understand,” Buffy replied with just a hint of sarcasm.

“Yes,” George sighed quietly, “I expect I would,” more loudly he announced, “this is my Time Machine!”

“Get out of here!” Buffy grinned and looked again at the machine.

“You want me to go?” perplexed George stayed just where he was.

“No!” Buffy gave the contraption another hard look, “Gotta say, it doesn’t look much like a DeLorian or one of those Police Box things.”

“But this is my greatest invention!” George looked imploringly into Buffy’s disbelieving eyes, “I’ve been working on it for years.”

Going back to studying the machine, Buffy listened with half an ear to what George was rambling on about. From what she knew about time machines (which as she would freely admit wasn’t a lot) the whole contraption (there was that word again, Buffy tutted to herself) didn’t look as if it _could_ be a time machine if it tried. Surely it should have some sort of capsule to protect the traveller. Also logic suggested that time travel would use ‘wicked’ amounts of power; there didn’t appear to be a car battery, let alone a nuclear reactor or flux capacitor anywhere in sight.

Her use of the word ‘wicked’ made Buffy look up at the big disc thing behind the chair. There were what looked like magical symbols engraved into the metal. Buffy’s lips drew into a thin line as her jaw set. Damn-it-all! Wouldn’t these people ever learn? Standing up she turned angrily towards George.

“Okay,” Buffy poked him in the chest with her forefinger, “just tell me which demon you made a deal with to make this thing work?”

0=0=0=0

Creeping up to the house, Maddy and Gillian heard the sound of raised voices. When Buffy had sneaked off into the garden, the girls, had carried on down to the main road as they’d been told. Standing on the corner of the street they’d waited patiently for a couple of minutes. After growing more worried by the second they’d come to the conclusion that the reason for Miss Simmers’ none appearance was due to her being in some life or death struggle with a fiend from hell; she obviously needed their help.

Turning they trotted back up the road until the came to the boarded up house. They made their way through the bushes, across the lawn and up to the window where Buffy had torn away the planks and gained access. Nervously they peeped around the corner of the window frame. 

Although there didn’t appear to be a lot of demons or anything immediately ‘hell-fiendy’ looking. There did appear to be a lot of shouting and finger waving and poking. It sort of reminded the girls of when their brothers got together in the pub on a Sunday afternoon and were arguing about football…not that they’d know about that because they _never_ went to the pub. After all it wasn’t their fault if they looked eighteen with make-up on.

Illicit visits to pubs aside, although there didn’t seem to be much fighting going on, the girls decided that they better make there arrival known. Maybe then the guy in the weird clothes (who was obviously a demon in disguise) wouldn’t attack Miss Summers. Although, the girls exchanged a wicked grin, if the demon did attack Miss Summers and they were there to ‘rescue’ her… No! The girls frowned at each other for thinking such a thing, that would be unforgivable it would also be wicked cool. Forgetting all thoughts about riding to the rescue of the Slayer-in-Chief, the girls burst into the room.

“MISS!” cried Maddy (or possibly Gillian) as they burst into the room, “OH!” the girls gasped in unison, “Oh-dear!”

They stared in horror at the space that up until a few moments ago had contained Miss Summers, the demon and the demon’s machine.

“Oh-my-god!” they chorused.

0=0=0=0

Buffy would never be sure exactly how it had happened. Later she worked out what had probably gone down; she’d been arguing with George about whether his machine was science or magic powered. He’d been standing protectively in front of his machine while she (she now admitted) had been getting right in his face. Next Maddy and Gillian had burst into the room shouting something. 

Shocked, George had taken a step back, caught the back of his leg on the rail that surrounded the machine and started to fall backwards. Instinctively he’d reached out and grabbed hold of Buffy’s arm as he’d tried to steady himself. Surprised by the sudden appearance of the two girls and being grabbed my George, Buffy stumbled and succeeded in tumbling herself and George into the machine.

Thinking she was being attacked, Buffy tried to fight off George’s fumbling hands. When she felt his touch on her breasts, Buffy saw red and pulled back her arm ready to punch the freak in the face, unfortunately her elbow knocked one of the levers on the control panel, there was a lurch and the disc began to spin and Buffy felt like she was falling.

0=0=0=0

**The Rosenberg-Scarpone Residence.**

Looking at the long whip in her hand, Kennedy couldn’t help but feel something was wrong; things had gone just a little too far too quickly for her liking. While she was the first to admit that the sight of Willow’s rosy red butt cheeks squirming about in her lap was a big turn on. Plus what she couldn’t do with her tongue or a feather while Willow was tied to their bed just wasn’t worth knowing; this didn’t feel right. Glancing at her girlfriend as she hung naked from the hook in the ceiling, Kennedy let the whip fall to her side; she looked at Willow as she hung there, her toes barely touching the floor.

“Huh?” Willow asked through the ball-gag in her mouth.

“Look,” Kennedy rolled up the whip and put it neatly on a nearby table, “I can’t go through with this it doesn’t feel right.”

“Huh-he-huh!” Willow pleaded as she hung at the other end of the room.

“Oh, don’t you come the old ‘if you loved me you’d do it’, with me, my girl,” Kennedy said angrily, “and this ‘Mistress of Pain’ outfit you wanted me to wear,” Kennedy picked at the skin tight, black leather cat-suit she was wearing, “its all hot and sweaty and it chaffs in places I’d much prefer it didn’t and these shoes!” she winced as she took a step towards Willow, “The heels are way too high and they’re making my feet hurt.”

“Uh-uuuuh,” Willow looked sympathetically at Kennedy before brightening up a little, “Uh-huh-he-huh-huh,” she pointed out.

“No I will not take them off,” Kennedy swiftly crossed the room to where Willow hung, “at least not until I’ve got you down.”

“Huuuuh,” sighed Willow sadly.

“How did you get yourself up here anyway?” Kennedy lifted Willow off the hook and sat her down on their bed, “Magic I suppose.”

“Huh-he,” Willow apologised just as the phone rang; Kennedy reached across the bed and picked up Willow’s mobile phone.

“Hello, Willow’s phone, Kennedy speaking,” Kennedy listen for a moment, “I’m sorry she can’t come to the phone right now, she’s…” Kennedy smiled to herself, she’d always wanted to say this, “...um, she’s a little tied up at the moment. Can I help?”

As Kennedy listened all signs of amusement slowly fading from her face.

“Okay,” she said into the phone, “we’ll be there like yesterday, ‘bye,” closing the phone she hung up. “That was Giles,” she started to untie Willow’s wrists, “there’s a problem, with Buffy.”

“HUH!?” Willow demanded.

“Oh, nothing too bad I’m sure,” Kennedy removed the last piece of rope and looked at Willow’s red raw wrists, “now look what you’ve done here, I’ll have to put dressings on those before we go out.”

“Huh huh-he?” Willow wanted to know as she tried to loosen the buckles that secured the ball gag.

“Nothing too serious,” Kennedy started to unzip her cat suit, “just that a couple of the trainees reported seeing Buffy vanish with a demon on some sort of machine.”

“HUUUUUUUH!!!” Willow screamed pointing to the gag urgently.

“OH,” Kennedy, half out of her leather suit, looked at Willow and smirked, “I was going to leave that in, stop your incessant babbling, you know?”

“Huuuuh,” Willow growled deeply in her throat.

“Alright, alright,” Kennedy reached behind Willow’s head and started to work on the buckles, “no need to go all black haired and vainy.”

0=0=0=0

**The Time Machine.**

Trying to fight off George’s fumbling hands; Buffy squirmed around on top of him attempting to get herself upright so she could give this creep the slaying he so richly deserved. Finally she had him pinned to the seat while she sat astride his lamp, Mr Pointy was already in her hand and she was just about to plunge it into his chest when something caught her eye. Someone had switched on a strobe light or something. Lowering her arm, Buffy twisted in George’s lap so she could get a better view of what was going on around her. The strobbing effect got faster and faster and for a moment she thought she was going to be sick. However the strobbing stopped as the light took on a sort of grey twilight quality.

“What the hell?” Buffy gasped.

“The machine!” mumbled George from between her breasts.

“The what?” Buffy leaned back and looked down into George’s worried eyes.

“The machine,” he repeated, “you must have knocked the control lever…we must be speeding through time. Get off me, I have to stop it!”

“Okay, okay,” Buffy found her footing and eased herself off George; she was just about to step over the brass rail that surrounded the seat when George grabbed hold of her and pulled her into his arms. “HEY!” Buffy raised Mr Pointy ready to stab.

“No stop!” George pleaded, “You’ve got to stay inside the rails.”

“What?” Buffy relaxed a little, perhaps the jerk wasn’t a demon-sex-freak after all (they tended to have more hands and longer…well we won’t go into what they had ‘longer’).

“Look,” George sighed with relief as he saw Buffy lowering her stake, “we’re in a sort of bubble of moving time. If you step outside the bubble you’ll be stepping out into normal, stationary time.”

Buffy frowned unsure what the problem was.

“It would be like stepping off an express train while it was travelling at a hundred miles an hour!” George explained.

“Oh,” Buffy looked apprehensively at the brass rail, “that would be bad.”

“Fatal,” agreed George, “now let me get to the controls. I’ll slow us to a halt then I’ll take you back to your time,” he looked questioningly at Buffy, “You do remember the date don’t you?”

“Of course I remember the date,” Buffy smiled while she frantically tried to remember the correct date, was it the third or the fourth?

“Good, good,” George stood up and squeezed around Buffy so he could get to the controls.

Eventually Buffy found herself sitting in the seat with George perched on her knees.

“Couldn’t you have made this a two-seater or something,” Buffy asked as George fiddled with the controls, “Well?” she asked hopefully.

“Oh dear,” George replied nervously.

“Oh dear?” Buffy frowned at the tone of worry in George’s voice, “I have a friend who says ‘oh dear’ just before something terrible happens. ‘Oh dear’ is never of the good.”

“Erm,” George’s fingers moved frantically across the control panel, “I’m sure I’ll be able to repair it.”

“Repair what?” Buffy wanted to know.

Shuffling around so he was facing Buffy, George held up one of the levers from the control panel.

“It broke off,” he announced, “one of us must have hit it when we were struggling together.”

“So,” Buffy smiled hopefully, “it’s broken off? You have a spare, right?”

“It wouldn’t do any good if I had a ‘spare’ as you call it,” George’s face clouded over with worry as he studied the lever. “It’s broken off where it screws into the machine, you see?”

Buffy did in fact see, the snapped off metal shone at her tauntingly.

“Just how bad is it?” She asked slowly.

“Well,” George explained sadly, “if we don’t find a way of stopping, the machine will go on for all eternity until the very end of time itself!”

0=0=0=0

**Willow’s Office, Slayer Central.**

“Erm, Kennedy,” Giles stood next to Kennedy and whispered in her ear, “why is Willow wearing that thing in her mouth?”

“You don’t want to know,” Kennedy whispered back.

“Oh,” there was just a hint of menace in Giles’ voice now, “I think I do.”

“Okay,” Kennedy turned to stare into the senior watcher’s eyes, she decided to let the menacing tone go for now, Giles was obviously worried about Willow so she explained.

“You’re quite right, Kennedy,” Giles sighed once Kennedy had finished her explanation, “I apologise for doubting you…and the other thing, again you were quite right, I didn’t want to know.”

0=0=0=0


	3. Chapter 3

3.

**The Time Machine.**

Fascinated, Buffy watched as ghostly buildings rose and fell in the blink of an eye all around the machine. The Victorian house they’d started from had long since fallen into ruin and disappeared. One moment they appeared to be in some great metropolis, next they would find themselves in some sort of desolate waste of ruined buildings, all of which happened in a few heartbeats. Tearing her eyes away from the scene outside the bubble formed by the machine Buffy looked at George.

“…when I started out,” he’d been explaining how he’d come to be here, Buffy had only really been half listening; “a war had just started in South Africa.”

“Uh-huh,” Buffy nodded her head as her eyes drifting back to the scene outside; the mega-city that had surrounded them a moment ago was now being buried under snow and ice.

“…when I stopped for the first time it was nineteen-seventeen and now we were at war with Germany too,” George explained sadly.

“That’s interesting,” Buffy replied vaguely; the snow and ice had completely buried the machine and the cold was making her breath steam in the strange, blue, twilight of their little world.

“…and then when I stopped again, it was nineteen-forty-one and the war with Germany was still going on but now they were using flying machines to destroy the cities.” George gazed at the blue-white cavern in which they found themselves entombed; he seemed to note the cold and pulled up the collar of his jacket. “Finally when I stopped in nineteen-sixty-two I arrived just in time to see the city being destroyed in great flashes of light that turned into huge mushroom shaped clouds and…”

“Hold up there a minute!” something didn’t sound quite right there, “Flashes of light and mushroom clouds?”

“Yes that’s right,” George nodded, “I suppose to you these events are things of myth and legend.”

“Just back up there a minute,” Buffy wriggled around in George’s lap, where she’d been sitting. “You think there were wars going on from whenever you started out until sometime in the nineteen-sixties?”

“That’s correct,” a worried look crossed George’s face, “why do you look at me so strangely, Miss Summers?”

“Okay,” Buffy sighed tiredly, “history lesson, right?”

George nodded his head.

“First,” Buffy thought back to sleepy history lessons on sunny afternoons, “those first three wars were all different wars and they had breaks between them.”

“They did?” George looked astounded.

“They did,” Buffy nodded her head firmly, “now I’m no great expert but I’m fairly sure that there wasn’t a nuclear war anytime in the sixties,” Buffy paused before adding, “or any other time. If there had been I’m sure that my mom or someone would have mentioned it, after all it’s not the sorta thing that would go un-noticed.”

“No,” George agreed slowly, “it did look extremely devastating…are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure.” Buffy turned away from George to see the snow slowly melting, for a moment or two they were completely under water. “Hey George,” Buffy turned to look at the man once again, “how come we don’t suffocate in here?”

“No idea,” George shrugged, “I did wonder myself…perhaps it’s a consequence of time travel itself. Perhaps the air renews itself or…” George’s voice drifted away for a moment, “You’re absolutely positive that there wasn’t a ‘nuclear war’, as you call it, in nineteen-sixty-two?”

“Sure as eggs is eggs and old men’s trousers,” Buffy replied all the while thinking she really should spend more time with her American friends.

0=0=0=0

**Willow’s Office, Slayer Central.**

“Hey!” Faith looked around at Giles and Kennedy, “Why’s Red wearing that…”

“Long story,” Giles explained.

“I’ll tell you later,” Kennedy began but was interrupted by a warning ‘HUH!’ from Willow. “Silly little witch,” Kennedy remarked pointedly, “put it on using magic and now we can’t get it off…is Dawn here?”

“Yeah,” Faith walked over to Willow’s desk where the witch in question sat at her computer console furiously hitting the keys of her keyboard, “she’s just coming…did you try to cut it off?”

Angrily, Willow batted Faith’s hands away from the straps around her head.

“Second thing we tried,” Kennedy shrugged, “the blade didn’t even scratch it.”

“Wow.” Faith said softly, “You two do this sort of thing often?”

“HUUUUH!?” Willow’s eyes went round as she looked in panic at Kennedy.

“Of course I won’t tell her, honey,” Kennedy soothed the witch, but turned and winked at Faith.

Oddly, after a slightly frosty start, Faith and Kennedy had become quite close friends. Kennedy often thought it was a case of opposites attracting; Faith on the other hand was just glad to have met someone who appeared to enjoy slaying as much as she did.

“What I don’t understand…” Giles stood looking down at Willow.

“There’s something ya don’t understand, tweed-man?” Faith asked incredulously.

“I’ll ignore that comment,” Giles announced haughtily, “what I don’t understand is how come Kennedy can understand Willow’s, not to put too fine a point on it, grunts. When the rest of us don’t.”

“Ever hear of ‘safe words’?” Faith smirked.

“Faith’s sort of…” Kennedy began but stopped as Dawn burst into the room.

“What’s happened to Buffy?” she demanded just as her eyes fell on Willow, “Hey guys, why’s Willow…”

“Long story,” began Giles.

“Tell you later,” Kennedy added.

“HUH-HUH-HUNT!” grunted Willow.

0=0=0=0

“Thank the Goddess!” Willow worked the kinks out of her jaw once Dawn had recited the spell to remove the gag.

“So how come ya needed Dawnie to do the mojo?” Faith stood next to Dawn and slipped her arm around the younger girl’s waist.

“Dawnie’s a bit magical,” Willow explained as she massaged her cheeks, “the spell was more likely to work with her saying it…now what happened to Buffy?”

“Here,” Kennedy placed a steaming cup of tea in front of Willow, “hot and sweet…just like you. Drink it all, you’re probably a little dehydrated.”

“Thanks,” Willow looked up at her girlfriend and smiled before getting back to business, “so, Buffy?”

“Yes,” Giles stepped forward and pulled out a chair and sat down, “two trainees, Gillian and Maddy…”

“The twins!” Dawn, Kennedy and Faith nodded their heads and exchanged knowing looks.

“Yes,” Giles looked around slightly annoyed and really wished Xander would turn up, “the twins. They reported Buffy being in some sort of altercation with a possible demon in an old house on Kenworth Street in Middlesbrough at about nine-thirty…”

Kennedy placed a large scale map of the area on Willow’s desk and pointed to the location.

“The girls reported,” continued Giles, “that at some point in the argument both Buffy and the demon fell into some sort of machine and vanished.”

“Are they sure he was a demon?” Willow asked as she studied the map; it didn’t tell her anything, the house was nowhere near the hellmouth itself so Buffy’s disappearance couldn’t be explained by her falling into the hellmouth.

“They’re not one-hundred percent sure,” Giles hesitated, “they’re only trainees…they’ve not much experience in these things…yet.” Giles paused to marshal his thoughts. “However they did say he was wearing ‘weird’ clothes and he talked ‘funny’.”

“That’s a lot of help…not!” Willow pursed her lips before looking up at Kennedy, “Sweetie, can you talk to the girls see if you can get any more details outta them?”

“Sure thing,” Kennedy turned and headed on out of the door.

“Okay,” Willow stood up, “I sent Kennie out of the room coz I’ve gotta do some magic.”

“I notice I’m not excused,” Giles remarked.

“Yeah, well you don’t get all worried and protective when I do stuff,” Willow explained. “So, Giles I’ll need that vial of Buffy’s blood…”

“Buffy’s blood!?” Dawn squeaked in surprise.

“Yeah,” Willow started to clear her desk of everything except her computer and the map. “I’m going to do a locator spell and the blood makes it more effective.”

“But blood?” Dawn looked slightly green (but not in a key-like magical way).

“Yeah,” Willow nodded her head while she searched for something on her computer, “eventually I’m gonna ask everyone for a sample.”

Just then Giles walked back into the room and handed Willow a small glass vial of blood, the frost from the freezer where it’d been stored steamed gently in the warm air.

“Okay,” Willow took the vial, “here we go!”

0=0=0=0

**The Time Machine.**

“We can’t go on like this forever,” Buffy observed.

“Well, actually we can,” George replied as he stared out miserably at the passing centuries. “We can go on until the very end of time itself.”

“Yeah but, we need stuff like food and water…” Buffy eyed George suspiciously, “...tell me you did bring food and water?”

George slowly shook his head as Buffy rolled her eyes.

“It was only going to be an experimental trip,” George explained, “a short hop into the future to make sure the machine worked…it…it seems I got rather carried away with things.”

“You sure did, time-boy,” Buffy looked around at the world outside the bubble.

The ice-age had passed and now the area was slowly being covered in trees. By slowly, Buffy meant that trees were springing from the ground in a blink of an eye before falling and rotting away into the soil. The forests lasted for a good five minutes before the last tree fell and sweeping grassland took over.

“I’m afraid,” George sighed sadly, “we’ll have died long before we see the end of the universe.”

“Not so fast,” Buffy once again wriggled about in George’s lap until she could see the dial that indicated the date.

All the figures were moving so fast they were just a blur, she had no idea what the date was. Glancing outside Buffy found that another great city had risen and fallen in the time she’d looked away. This had to stop, she told herself. Running her fingers across the control panel she came to the gap where the snapped off lever should be. Her forefinger slipped into the hole and she felt the broken off nub of the lever; she pressed in experimentally, it moved!

0=0=0=0

**Willow’s Office, Slayer Central.**

“That’s odd,” Willow studied the markings on the map intently.

It’d been a simple locator spell, the sort of spell she’d cast hundreds of times so she was sure she’d got it right. Casting the spell again, just to be curtain she came up with the same answer.

“What’s odd?” Giles asked a hint of concern in his voice.

“Umm,” Willowglanced away from the map and at the worried faces that looked back at her. “Well, according to this, Buffy’s still at the house but the ‘signal’ marking her position isn’t as strong as it should be. It’s like she’s there but not there…”

“Like she’d dead?” Dawn asked her voice trembling with emotion; Faith gathered her girlfriend closer and held her tight.

“No-no,” Willow tried to sound confident, “I’m sure I musta made a mistake or there’s some other reason.”

“Willow!” Dawn looked up from where her head rested on Faith’s shoulder, “That’s a simple spell and you’re Mega-Witch-Girl, you want me to believe you made a mistake?”

Willow shrugged helplessly, she didn’t know what to tell Dawn. Although the two sisters argued and had their falling out; the most recent ones about Buffy’s alcoholism and Dawn’s relationship with Faith. They still loved each other, they were still sisters.

“Faith,” Dawn wiped at her eyes and pushed herself away from Faith’s embrace, “take me to this Kenworth Street place, Buffy might still be there.”

“Sure,” Faith turned toward the door with Dawn just behind her.

“I’ll keep looking,” Willow reassured them as they left the office to herself and Giles.

0=0=0=0

**The Time Machine.**

“I think I can move it,” Buffy turned her head and grinned at George.

“What!?”

“The hole where that lever fits,” Buffy explained, “I got my finger in and I think I can move it…I think I can stop us.”

“Impossible,” George shook his head, “I made that control deliberately stiff, you simply won’t have the strength or the leverage to move it.”

“Trust me,” Buffy smiled knowingly, “I’ve got the strength.”

Without another word, Buffy stuck her finger in the hole and pressed down. At first nothing seemed to happen, she pressed harder. The control jerked under the pressure of her finger and the machine lurched to one side.

“CAREFUL!” George cried out in panic, “Do it slowly or we’ll crash.”

His warning came too late as Buffy pressed down on the control as hard as she could. The machine lurched sickeningly from side to side. The images outside the bubble started to become slightly more solid as they slowed. However the world outside soon became blurred again but this time it was because the machine was starting to spin.

Holding on for her very life, Buffy gritted her teeth and kept the pressure on the control. The machine spun faster and faster until she lost her grip on the control panel. She felt like she was flying through the air for a moment before she crashed into something solid and the lights went out.

0=0=0=0

**Kenworth Street, Middlesbrough.**

The sound of their boot heels on the bare boards of the floor rung hollowly in their ears as Dawn and Faith played their torches over the empty room.

“No one here, kid,” Faith announced after a moment.

“Are you sure?” Dawn looked miserably around the room that was notable only for its complete lack of big sisters.

“’fraid so, Dawnie,” Faith switched off her torch; Dawn still had her’s switched on and appeared to be studying a section of floorboards.

“Come here,” Dawn gestured for Faith to join her, “look at this.”

Joining Dawn, Faith looked to see what the girl was pointing at. At first Faith didn’t see anything odd. However, when she switched on her own torch she saw a perfectly round section of clean floorboards.

“Maybe someone cleaned up…” Faith began but then the thought struck her; why this area and not the rest of the room, she turned and checked, the rest of the floor was filthy.

“Faith!” Dawn cried out in surprise.

“What?” Faith turned ready to fight.

“No, look,” Dawn pointed to the floor, “I saw a leaf blow into the clean area…”

“And?” Faith asked wondering what was so special about a leaf.

“It just vanished!” Dawn gasped, “Maybe this is what made Buffy disappear…we need Willow and Giles down here…NOW!”

0=0=0=0

**The Future.**

Lying on her back, Buffy could see only black, it took a moment for her to realise she still had her eyes tightly closed. Letting in the daylight a bit at a time, she found herself staring up at a clear blue sky. There was a soft breeze blowing from somewhere, strange birdsong came to her ears and she was soaking wet.

Soaking wet? Buffy sat up and looked around, she appeared to be in a clearing in some sub-tropical forest. Strange flowering trees rose twenty or thirty feet into the air all around her as she sat on the damp grass. Gathering her legs under her she carefully pushed herself to her feet. Swaying slightly and holding on to her head in case it fell off, Buffy closed her eyes until the dizziness wore off.

Opening her eyes again she was just in time to see a tiny, brightly coloured bird hover in front of her before it flitted off to one of the trees. Spellbound, Buffy watched as the bird moved from flower to flower as it drank nectar through its long beak. Finding herself smiling, Buffy congratulated herself on being alive (although slightly damp) and not in a hell dimension. Continuing the examination of her surroundings, Buffy saw the Time Machine lying on its side with George lying unconscious half in and half out of the machine. Hurriedly she made her way over to where the man lay and knelt down beside him.

“George? George!” Buffy gently slapped the man’s face as he groaned and slowly woke up.

“Miss Summers?” George pushed himself up on his elbow and rubbed his forehead with his free hand, “Where are we?”

“I think we’re safe,” Buffy looked around the clearing suspiciously just as the sound of voices came to her ears, “or maybe not.”

0=0=0=0


	4. Chapter 4

4.

**The Future.**

Initially, Buffy thought they were children. There were about a dozen of them all dressed in the same sort of brightly coloured knee length tunic. They all had the same neatly cut blonde hair, neither too long nor too short; for a moment a shiver went up Buffy’s back as she thought back to her recent adventures in Midwich. However, this didn’t last long; where the Midwich children were quiet and solemn (and totally evil in a world domination sort of way) these little people were happy and bright. They chattered excitedly between themselves as they walked along, often bursting into laughter as some inconsequential thing. As they got closer Buffy saw that they weren’t children after all. Although it was hard to tell the sexes apart, she found that if she looked closely the usual differences were obvious; that and the fact that at least two of the females were heavily pregnant.

The happy crowd of little people stopped talking and laughing when they noticed Buffy and George. For a moment they just stood there looking in a slightly bewildered way at the newcomers. Although their eyes looked with a curtain curiosity at the travellers, Buffy couldn’t help but be reminded of sheep gazing over a fence at her. Then as if by some silent signal the little people scurried over to get a better look at the travellers. They swarmed around Buffy and George touching their clothes and hands; once or twice one of the braver ones reached up and touched their faces. Their hands were small and smooth, devoid of any sign of hard work. It was an odd sensation for Buffy, but none of the little people was taller than her shoulder, most were shorter; for the first time in her life Buffy was a giant in the land.

“So this is what the human race turns into,” George didn’t sound impressed.

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed, “like its odd coz most studies show people are getting taller,” she shrugged. “Maybe something happened to favour short people,” she smiled at the thought; her genes would win out in the end, “like me!”

“So,” George looked down at Buffy, “you agree with Darwin’s theories of evolution and natural selection?”

“Sure,” again Buffy shrugged, she’d not given it much thought before, “like, why not, seems like as good an explanation for stuff as anything.”

“It’s not that,” George gently retrieved his watch from the hand of one of the little people. “I’m just surprised you’d even heard of it.”

“Look,” Buffy frowned up into George’s face, “I keep telling you; we’re not savages where I come from. All those wars you saw were different wars and that war you saw in the sixties never happened!”

Looking down at Buffy sceptically, George was just about to make some comment about whether Buffy was a savage or not, when the little people suddenly rushed across the clearing towards the time machine. It was as if the sight of something new and unusual had made the little people lose all interest in their visitors. The little people clustered around the time machine chattering excitedly amongst themselves. They touched it and Buffy was sure she saw one or two of them bite the machine as if to see if it was good to eat. After a very short while they lost interest and slowly wondered away in groups of two or three. Very soon Buffy and George were the only humans left in the clearing.

“How odd,” George mused.

“Shall we follow them?” Buffy looked out after the last of the little people as they disappeared between the bushes.

“Later,” George walked back towards his machine, “I want to check the time machine for damage.”

“Yeah, sure,” Buffy turned away from watching where the little people had gone and joined George by the machine, “is it bad?”

The time machine looked a sorry sight. When Buffy had caused the machine to slow down it had decelerated too quickly making it go into an uncontrollable spin. The machine lay on its side; the great bronze-like disc behind the traveller’s seat was half buried in the soft brown earth. The brass rail around the machine was bent and twisted in several places and a number of the dials on the control panel were broken. One of the skids that the machine normally rested on was now hidden in a pile of soft earth while the other had broken away from its mountings and pointed forlornly at the sky. Climbing all over his machine and looking into small inspection hatches, George made quiet tutting noises strangely similar to Giles’ ‘annoyed clucking sound’. Buffy watched feeling guiltily responsible for all the damage.

“Well?” she asked as George stood up and regarded his invention, his hands on his hips. “Will it work again? I’m sorry I made it crash, I should have guessed…”

“Not to worry, Miss Summers,” George said in the same tone of voice that Giles had used when she was a teenager and he was annoyed at her but was being too polite to let it show. “You weren’t to know,” he walked around the machine and took hold of the skid that pointed to the sky, “now if I can get it upright…”

He heaved on the skid, but the machine didn’t move.

“Here let me,” Buffy walked around to stand next to George, she pushed him out of the way and took hold of the skid.

The bemused expression on George’s face turned to one of amazement as Buffy easily righted the machine and carefully rested it back on its skids.

“Good grief!” George exclaimed in wonder, “Are all people as strong as you in your time?”

“Not all,” Buffy replied truthfully, but without actually telling the whole truth, she looked at George expectantly, “so will it get us home or do I have to find some new clothes…course I’m telling you now these are way too warm.”

As if to drive her point home Buffy took off her jacket and the pullover she was wearing underneath it. She would have really have liked to take off her thermal vest, but she thought that the sight of her in her bra would probably prove too much for ‘Victorian’ George.

“Well, actually,” George climbed into the control seat, “the fabric of the machine isn’t too badly damaged. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed in a basic metalworking shop,” he pulled the broken lever from his pocket, “Even this can be repaired given the right tools.”

“And where are we going to find these tools?” Buffy asked seeing the fly in their ointment.

“Ah, that’s the rub,” George absently brushed some loose earth from the control panel, “somehow I don’t think our friends there,” he pointed vaguely in the direction the ‘little people’ had taken, “are too well versed in metal working.”

“Well,” Buffy sighed, “we won’t find out by just standing around here.”

“Yes you’re right, Miss Summers,” George climbed from the machine, “they may well surprise us yet,” he stood next to Buffy and gestured in the direction the locals had taken, “shall we go and see?”

“Sure,” Buffy shrugged, “I’ve nothing better to do…did you happen to notice what year this is?”

The machine had a dial that told the rider what year he’d stopped in.

“Well I can’t be sure,” George pushed a branch out of the way to allow Buffy to precede him through the bushes. “The time recording device was probably damaged in the crash, but according to the dial it is at least eight-hundred-and-two-thousand, one-hundred-and-forty-two AD!”

“Darn,” Buffy muttered, “I bet that curry I left in the fridge has gone bad by now.”

0=0=0=0

**Kenworth Street, Middlesbrough.**

Trying to stifle a yawn, Willow walked around the clean circle on the floor of the room in the house on Kenworth Street.

“You sure stuff just vanished when it entered the circle?” She asked Dawn.

Dawn nodded in the affirmative.

“Gotta say,” Willow sighed, “I’m not picking up any residual magics, just the normal background stuff.”

“I saw it too Red,” Faith added.

“Oh!” Willow gave Dawn and Faith a mortified look, “It’s not that I don’t believe you…It’s just that there’s nothing there now.”

Willow stopped pacing around the circle, she walked over to where Giles stood (being careful not to cross the circle) she crouched down and started to search through a large Gladstone bag that’d been sitting on the floor by Giles’ feet. After a moment or two she stood up again and turned towards the circle, in her hands she held a brown paper bag. Advancing on the circle, Willow opened the bag and reached inside. To the accompaniment of fairy bells, she sprinkled some sparkly dust like substance so it would fall within the circle. The dust drifted and glittered to the ground to land within the circle. It settled on the floorboards and twinkled at the watchers stubbornly refusing to vanish.

“Well,” Willow screwed up the paper bag and tossed it over her shoulder; the bag burst into flames and vanished before it hit the floor, “whatever was there is gone now, but I wouldn’t stand there just in case it comes back.”

“Okay,” Dawn fidgeted nervously, “what do we do now?”

“Nothing,” Giles said firmly.

Dawn opened her mouth to protest but was stopped as Faith put her hand on her shoulder.

“Look,” Giles glanced at his watch, “its late and everyone’s tired. I suggest we go home have a good night’s sleep then start early in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Willow agreed through another yawn, “I’ve got some books an’ stuff at home that might help, plus we might need some heavy equipment.”

“Heavy equipment?” Dawn asked uncertainly.

“Just some magic stuff,” Willow reassured her.

“Yeah,” Kennedy glanced at Faith, “while the Good Witch of the North is doing that maybe you and Dawn would like to help me research this house. See if there’s any record of anything occult happening here.”

Faith was just about to point out just what a bad idea this was when she caught Kennedy’s meaningful look.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Faith nodded her head and crossed her arms over her chest, “good idea Kennie, who knows what whacko might have lived here.”

“Yeah okay,” Dawn frowned at the two slayers, “I know, keep the little sister out of the way, much.”

“Right,” Giles thought it was time to get things moving, “I’ll arrange for a couple of slayers to watch the…the…um…hole? Wouldn’t do for Buffy to return and us not hear about it you know? I suggest we all meet at Slayer Central at what? Eight o’clock?”

There were answering nods as people turned away from the scene to head off home. Kneeling down next to Willow to help her pack her ‘Bag of Tricks’, Kennedy sighed.

“What’s up?” Willow asked quietly.

“Buffy,” Kennedy pouted.

“I’m sure she’s okay, y’know.” Willow was surprised that Kennedy seemed bothered about Buffy’s fate; although her relationship with Buffy had improved recently the two women weren’t exactly ‘bosom buds’.

“It’s not that,” Kennedy admitted, “she’s the sort that always comes up smelling of roses.”

“What is it then?” Willow closed the bag and stood up.

“Well,” Kennedy pushed the door to the hall open for Willow, “this is the first weekend we’ve had off in ages and she goes and gets herself lost…you know, I think she does it deliberately.

Despite herself, Willow had to giggle.

0=0=0=0

**The Future.**

Standing in the doorway of a football stadium sized hall, Buffy and George looked around in wonder as little people bustled past them and into the interior. They’d followed the trail left by the locals (George had wanted to call them ‘natives’ but Buffy wouldn’t let him) to a river. Here they found more of the little people playing in the river or on its banks.

Once again after a short show of curiosity the locals soon lost interest in their guests and went back to the serious business of playing, leaving Buffy and George to study them in peace. Buffy had laughed at George’s reaction to all the ‘skinny-dipping’ that was going on. But it did give them a chance to study the little people’s physiology more closely. Apart from a few pregnant or obviously nursing mothers, the little people reminded Buffy of young teens. The little children than ran around their legs looked no different to small children in her own time. The most striking thing was how little each individual differed from the next. Frowning Buffy supposed they knew each other apart but to her eyes they all looked the same.

“I say, Miss Summers,” George came up next to Buffy as he kept an eye on the happy throng.

“I wish you’d call me Buffy,” Buffy replied tersely.

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind,” George replied without further explanation; before Buffy could reply with a good come back, George started to speak again. “I’ve been watching our friends here playing and I’ve noticed something.”

“So?” Buffy crossed her arms over her chest still miffed at George’s refusal to use her first name.

“Apart from a sort of tag and other chase games,” George pointed to a group of children running around the legs of a group of adults, “they don’t seem to have any other games. Where are the games of catch or team games, counting games and so on?”

Shrugging, Buffy had to admit the local’s idea of play seemed very basic.

“You’re point being?” Buffy asked after a moment or two.

“I’m not sure,” George replied knowingly, “but I’m sure its significant.”

Leading George away from the river, Buffy followed a well worn path until they came to what they would call ‘the hall’. It was the first building they’d seen in their short stay, but it certainly made up for the lack of other buildings. It was a great domed building made out of some sparkling, white, stone that appeared to have seams of silver running through it. As they walked closer they started to get a true idea of it size, it was even bigger than they’d at first thought. Buffy pointed to the lower parts of the dome. Creepers and vines had long ago started to encroach on the lower slopes as had the grass that was growing through the cracks in the pavement they found themselves walking along.

“These doors don’t look as if they’ve been closed in ages,” Buffy gestured to the two huge bronze-like doors either side of the entrance.

“Yes, I noticed,” George nodded his head as he pointed upwards, “look.”

Following George’s pointing finger, Buffy saw a great irregular hole in the roof, looking below the hole she noticed pieces of the roof that had obviously fallen in many years ago.

“Absolutely no attempt has been made to repair that hole or clear up the mess,” George said quietly, “I can tell, I’m an engineer by training, I’m only a scientist by inclination.”

As they walked further into the hall they saw hundreds of low round tables set out across the hall. Each table held a bowl on a plinth in its centre and in the bowl was piled strange fruits or vegetables. Although the little people, who milled around the tables helping themselves to the contents of the bowls, numbered in the few hundred. Every table in the structure was laid out like the ones occupied by the little people as if whoever had organised the feast expected thousands to turn up.

“A declining population?” George suggested.

“Or the main crowd hasn’t arrived yet,” Buffy countered.

Conceding the point, George gestured to a vacant table.

“Dinner?” he suggested.

“Fine by me,” Buffy eagerly settled herself down on one of the cushions placed around the table, “I’m starving.”

0=0=0=0


	5. Chapter 5

5.

**The Future.**

The following morning broke bright and clear, Buffy was beginning to suspect that this future Cleveland had a climate not dissimilar from that of California. After their meal the previous night Buffy had gone in search of somewhere to sleep. If she’d learnt one thing about time travel it was that it really messed with your body clock. Add to this that to her it was early in the morning of the previous day and Buffy had needed a good two or three hours sleep to get back on top form.

After the little people had finished their meal (the hall had never got more than a quarter full so maybe George was right about the declining population) they had wondered off further into the hall, Buffy decided to follow them leaving George to examine more of the fruit and vegetables that had been eaten for supper. The Little People had gone down a wide flight of dimly lit steps; Buffy followed and found herself in another huge chamber.

This chamber was divided up into areas about the size of a tennis court each partitioned off from its neighbour by a wall that stood about six feet high, the roof being about ten feet above the floor. Each partitioned off area was scattered with cushions and mattresses on to which the Little People lay down and immediately started to have sex.

“Oh my!” Buffy turned away, “Looks like George’s idea about a declining population is way off after all.”

Ignoring the moans and groans of pleasure emanating from behind the partitions, Buffy found a vacant area and lay down on one of the mattresses. Arranging some cushions under her head, she settled down and got herself comfortable. Closing her eyes she found herself thinking; what if George couldn’t repair the time machine? What if they were stuck here forever? Would that be so bad? The lives of the Little People didn’t look so terrible, maybe… Buffy yawned hugely and quickly fell asleep.

0=0=0=0

The following morning, after a desperate search for the ‘facilities’, Buffy had gone back upstairs to find George sleeping under the same table that they’d eaten at the previous evening, she nudged him awake as she sat down.

“Morning George,” Buffy greeted the man brightly, he looked at her through sleep rimed eyes; she picked out a peach like-fruit and bit into it.

“Good morning Miss Summers,” George ran his fingers through his tussled hair, “you slept well I presume?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Buffy finished the ‘peach’ and picked up what looked like an orange and started to peel it, “what about you?”

“Well enough,” George admitted as he started to look around the hall urgently.

“If you’re looking for the rest room,” Buffy pointed across the hall, “they’re down those stairs over there.”

The ‘restrooms’ had been both familiar and strange to Buffy. While the toilets had been a standard design such had been in use since the water closet had been invented. The materials that everything had been made of were a mystery. The showers had dispensed copious amounts of hot water, but there were no towels. Instead Buffy found herself being blown dry by warm air that appeared to come out of the walls. There were combs, toothbrushes and all manner of personal grooming products all of which came in handy sized containers designed for single use only. Whoever was in charge obviously wanted the Little People to look their best.

Frowning at the thought, Buffy discarded the idea of dressing in one of the tunics the locals wore and put her own cloths back on. Who organised everything? Who supplied the food, the clothes and the entire range of bathroom products? Perhaps there was some mega computer deep underground controlling factories that produced everything that the Little People used; she decided to mention it to George when he saw him again. After George came back from the restroom he looked even more perplexed than she’d been. Of course, she thought, everything would look doubly strange to him not knowing about computers and automated factories. They discussed the possibilities as George ate his breakfast.

“While I admit that your notion of where all the manufactured goods come from has merit,” George said a little condescendingly, “can you explain how the food got here?”

“Obviously by the same method that makes everything else turn up where it’s needed,” Buffy pointed out.

“If that’s so,” George bit into something like an over sized banana, “they must be very light on there feet.”

“Huh?” Buffy queried.

“My dear Miss Summers I slept here last night,” he gestured around at the hall with his half eaten banana-like fruit, “when I went to sleep the fruit bowls were empty and there were half eaten food scraps all over the floor and tables. Yet when I awoke everything was as we first saw it…odd don’t you think?”

“Are you a heavy sleeper?” Buffy asked.

“Not particularly,” George admitted.

“Like you say,” Buffy agreed, “it’s a little weird…which is why I suggest we spend the day exploring.”

“An eminently sensible suggestion,” George nodded his head eagerly, “what do you suggest?”

“Look,” Buffy stood up and stretched, “I need to work-out a little, so I thought I’d take a look around the local area.”

“Hmm,” George looked up at Buffy from under his brows, “I suppose that’ll be alright there’s no sign of dangerous animals so you should be safe.”

“It’s not me you need to look out for,” Buffy pointed out darkly.

“In that case,” George stood up, “I will explore our local environs and try to discover what I can from the locals, agreed?”

“Whatever,” Buffy nodded, “I’ll meet you back here this evening, okay?”

0=0=0=0

Running steadily, Buffy left the hall, the river and the Little People far behind. She ran between the clumps of dense bush that dotted the area startling some rabbit like creatures from their hiding places as she went by. These were the first non-bird creatures she’d seen, they appeared to feed off the grass that grew between the areas of bush, Buffy idly wondered if there was something that ate the future-bunnies.

Finding herself running up hill, Buffy went on until she found the summit before she stopped to look around. Hands on her hips and hardly breathing at all heavily she sucked the warm, flower scented air into her lungs. Looking around she found things much changed from the Middlesbrough she knew. Of the northern city with its docks and chemical works there was no sign, no surprise there she told herself.

However the complete absence of the North Sea came as something of a shock. Where the expanse of blue-grey water should be was a wide flat plain. It seemed to stretch to the horizon, a great sea of undulating grass. Buffy watched for several minutes searching the plain for the great herds of herbivores you tended to get on vast grasslands. But no majestic herds came into view and she felt unaccountably disappointed.

Turning to the south, she could just make out the tree covered slopes leading up to the North Yorkshire Moors. They didn’t look so high as they had in her time, obviously they’d been wore down by millennia of wind and rain and at least one ice age. The thought came to her, weren’t ice ages supposed to come round every twenty thousand years or so? She didn’t know, if she ever got home again she’d ask Giles.

Whatever, she sighed, everything had changed, what was once a flat plain was now covered in rolling hills, what had once been neat fields was now dotted with clumps of bush and larger trees and… Buffy screwed up her eyes and wondered how she’d missed them before. There between the trees and bush were the roofs of buildings, large buildings too. As near as she could make out they were each about the size of the hall she’d spent the night in. They were dotted about, seemingly at random, every couple of miles or so; having nothing better to do, Buffy set off at a brisk run towards the closest building.

0=0=0=0

It was only as she got closer to the building that Buffy realised why she’d not noticed them at first. The dome of the building she was rapidly approaching was almost completely covered in vines and creepers. The lower slopes of the dome were actually over grown with small trees and she began to wonder just how long these monuments to man’s ingenuity had stood here.

Slowing to a walk, Buffy approached the entrance to the dome across great cracked paving slabs. Here and there quite large trees had thrust their way up where the slabs had been broken. Taking a moment to examine a broken slab, Buffy was at a loss to guess what it had been made of so she continued on her way.

Coming to the main door she found the great bronze doors lying on the ground having long ago fallen from their mountings. The interior of the dome was dimly lit by several great rents in the roof. These holes had been partially covered by vines giving what light there was in the hall a strange green quality. The floor of the hall appeared to be covered in monstrous shapes that towered above the floor. It wasn’t until Buffy had walked into the hall almost up to the shapes themselves that she realised that these were great machines. Or they had been great machines; they were now covered in a thick layer of dust, cobwebs and here and there, vines.

“Maybe it’s a factory,” Buffy said to herself; her voice breaking a silence that had lasted for centuries.

Continuing on between the machines Buffy reassessed her earlier assumption. This wasn’t a factory this was a museum. Every now and again she’d find something that looked suspiciously like a TV monitor. They reminded her of similar monitors she’d seen on her rare visits to museums in her own time. Walking on through the machines she eventually came to another section of the museum.

This area seemed to be full of rooms. Each room, she guessed, represented the builder’s best guess of how people lived in the past. It was hard to tell what period each room came from. They were all badly overgrown and anyway after eight hundred thousand years or so Buffy doubted she’d see anything that she’d recognise.

It was while she was looking at a rather forlorn room, obviously from a time of great privation, that she felt someone or something watching her. She was quite sure of it, her slayer senses were quite adamant that there was something malignant watching her from twenty yards to her right, rear. Turning quickly, Buffy searched the darkness with her sharp eyes. Had she just seen movement when she’d turned? Her senses where still telling her that there was something there, but it’d moved more to her right now.

“Okay,” Buffy called out tiredly, “so I got in without paying…” she listened for any answering noise and was rewarded by the sound of feet shuffling on the dusty floor coming from about fifteen yards away. “But, that’s no excuse to go ‘round creeping up on people. Look,” Buffy started to walk slowly towards where the sound of movement was coming from, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Buffy smiled as she remembered what Maggie the senior slayer instructor would say next; “The easy way isn’t easy and the hard way is flammin’ hard!” 

Seeing something pale move in the shadows, Buffy sprang towards the shape and grabbed it by its lank, rank hair. The creature struggled in her grasp twisting itself around so it was facing towards her.

“EWW!” Buffy cried as the full horror of the creature became apparent to her, “What sort of demon are you?” she dodged the wild blow the creature aimed at her head and returned the complement with interest.

The punch ripped the creature’s hair out of Buffy’s hand, leaving her with a fistful of stinking off-white hair which she quickly dropped onto the ground; she strode briskly after the creature. Picking it up from the floor were it sprawled she hit it again this time sending it spinning into a room that looked like it represented some sort of control room. The creature staggered about the room shaking its head no doubt trying to rid it of the bells ringing in its ears. Again Buffy advanced on the creature.

“You’re not a very good fighter are you?” once more she reached for the beast.

This time the creature didn’t even attempt to punch or kick her. Opening its mouth it sank its teeth into her arm. Crying out in pain and surprise, Buffy smashed her fist repeatedly into the creature’s face until it let go of her arm. Standing over the creature as it lay slumped on the floor, Buffy reached down grabbed a handful of hair in each hand and twisted the creature’s head violently to the right. There was a satisfyingly loud crack as the creature’s neck broke followed almost immediately by a quiet explosion as it turned to ash before settling onto the floor.

“My god,” Buffy sighed as she stood up straight, “what d’you know? A vamp!”

Standing over the pile of ash, Buffy looked around checking for any signs that there might be more vampires out there. She told herself that she shouldn’t be surprised. If humans had survived, all be it in a slightly changed form, why shouldn’t vampires? Looking down at her arm Buffy studied her wound in the dim light. It didn’t look so bad, but she should wash it and maybe put a dressing on it as soon as possible. Her slayer healing would soon have her arm back to normal by tomorrow.

Walking back towards the entrance, Buffy paused to look back at the museum once more. The thought struck her that if they were going to find the tools to repair the time machine they’d find them here, she decided to bring George out here tomorrow. She’d have to be careful about the vamps, but the one she’d fought hadn’t seemed very formidable.

As Buffy started to trot back towards what she was beginning to think of as home, she found herself thinking about the vampire. The creature had been no more than five feet tall, its skin had the worst case of melanin deficiency she’d ever seen. It was so pallid it’d looked grey, but that was probably due to the poor light in the museum. It hadn’t been particularly strong, certainly not as strong as the vampires she was used to; Xander would be able to take on one maybe two of the future vamps and beat them no problem.

It was then that Buffy realised, of course their pray wasn’t that strong, no doubt the future-vamps fed on the Little People. A very disturbing thought entered Buffy’s mind at this point. What if the future-vamps were farming the Little People for food? Buffy shivered in disgust at the idea, but… But it would explain where everything in the Hall came from, but that would mean the vamps had control over some pretty wild technology which was very un-vamp-like, but things changed in eight-hundred-thousand odd years and… Buffy stopped her mental babble as she realised she was getting nowhere, she didn’t have enough information to come to any firm conclusions. She needed to think about this, gather all the facts, or, just find out where the vamps lived and slay the bloodsuckers…it’s what she did the best!

Finding herself almost back to where they’d originally crashed, Buffy decided to change course and check on the time machine. Trotting into the clearing that they’d first landed in, Buffy stopped and looked around in confusion. The machine was gone! All there was to show that it’d ever existed were two drag marks left in the ground from where the skids had dug in as it had been dragged away.

0=0=0=0


	6. Chapter 6

6.

**Kenworth Street, Middlesbrough.**

Making a note on her clipboard, Willow walked around the fantastical devices that surrounded what had become known as ‘The Hole’. Tapping a gauge with her pencil, Willow ‘Hmmm’d’ and pushed her spectacles back up her nose; Willow had started wearing little gold-rimmed spectacles a couple of weeks previously. She claimed that she was short-sighted, but, Kennedy was almost certain it was an affectation designed to make her look more studious. Standing next to each other Kennedy and Faith watched the witch as she made delicate adjustments to the apparatus that filled the room.

“Hey,” Faith said quietly not taking her eyes off the busy witch, “do ya know what she’s doing?”

“Umm,” Kennedy hesitated for a moment; she could come out with some long winded and technical explanation…or she could tell the truth. “That would be a, ‘no’ and I suspect Willow doesn’t either.”

“What?” Faith looked at her sister slayer as if she’d just been told that the world was flat and the Sun orbited the Earth. “But she’s ‘sposed to be this mega-witch she can do anything…or so people like Dawn keep telling me.”

“If she could do ‘anything’,” Kennedy pointed out quietly, “she’d be a goddess or something. Now while in the past I might have mistakenly claimed that Willow was a goddess, after living with her all this time I’m here to tell you she’s not!”

“Oh,” Faith nodded her head slowly, “like that ball-gag thing?”

“Yeah,” Kennedy agreed, “that and other things.”

“Like?” Faith asked eagerly, she’d become bored watching Willow do whatever she was doing, what Kennedy was implying sounded so much more interesting.

“Look,” Kennedy turned to whisper in Faith’s ear, “one night we’ll go for a drink or something and I’ll tell you all about it, if…”

“If?” Faith smiled lasciviously.

“If you tell me about any little quirks...” Kennedy paused and looked around making sure that the girl in question wasn’t listening, “…quirks that Dawn might have.”

“Quirks?” Faith looked puzzled for a moment before the light came on behind her eyes, “Oh! Ya mean…” she stopped herself from blurting out a long list of Dawn’s bedroom foibles, instead she said, “Yeah, right, it’s a deal…next Thursday okay for you?”

“I’ll have to check my diary,” Kennedy whispered back, “but I think I’m free that night…”

“Morning all!” Giles burst into the room followed closely by Dawn, “Any news?”

“You’re sounding pretty chipper this morning,” Willow looked up from her incomprehensible machines, took her glasses off and started to polish them.

“Oh-god!” Kennedy whisper to Faith, “She’s turned into Mr Giles; no way am I dressing up in tweed!”

Sticking her fist in her mouth Faith tried to stop herself from laughing out loud at the images that were playing in her head.

“What’s so funny?” Dawn asked as she slipped her arm through Faith’s.

Wiping the tears of mirth from her eyes, Faith quickly sobered, “Just something Kennie said.”

Dawn turned her gaze onto Kennedy, she could do with cheering up.

“Oh!” Kennedy gave Faith a dirty look that almost had her laughing again, “It’s nothing, too complicated to explain…slayer stuff you know?”

“Right!” Willow had put her glasses back on and was standing in front of all her equipment, clipboard in hand. “Having used a mixture of magic and science,” she announced breathlessly, “and after due consideration and weighing up all the factors both natural and supernatural I can safely say, without a shadow of a doubt that…” The room was hushed as everyone looked expectantly at Willow. “With-without,” Willow continued the uncertainty in her voice increasing by the second, “a-a doubt of a shadow that…that…” Willow’s shoulders slumped as she admitted defeat to herself. “Look guys,” she took off her glasses and laid them to one side, “I’m sorry, but I’ve no idea where Buffy is.”

“But-but that doesn’t mean she’s like dead, right?” Dawn hung on tightly to Faith.

“No-no-no!” Willow took a step towards Dawn and then stopped herself, “Look I don’t know where she is but I’ve a pretty good idea…”

“Pretty good?” Giles lifted a quizzical eyebrow.

“Okay,” Willow admitted, “make that, some assumptions based on gut feeling and a couple of wild guesses…but I’m almost certain, well, pretty sure that Buffy fell into some sort of time dilation vortex!”

“Once more in English?” Faith asked.

“She fell into a hole in time,” Willow explained, “but, the good news is…”

“There’s good news?” Dawn asked disbelievingly.

“It wasn’t anything evil or bad,” Willow tried to put some hope in her voice.

“Falling into a hole in time isn’t bad?” Dawn obviously didn’t believe her old friend.

“Well,” Willow could see Dawn’s point of view, “we know it wasn’t anything demonic and from what the twins said…” there was a short pause while all the women in the room had short fantasies about the twins. “W-what t-the twins said it looked like Buffy was pulled into a machine before she vanished.”

“A time machine?” Giles asked.

“Maybe,” Willow agreed.

“A-ha!” Giles pulled a notebook from out of his jacket. “I did some research this morning…by myself I might add,” he looked accusingly at Dawn, Faith and Kennedy. “Checking the old county council records I discovered that this house was previously owned by one ‘George William Henry’ an engineer and something of an amateur scientist and inventor. His steam powered cork-screw was years ahead of its time…”

“Giles,” Dawn said warningly.

“What?” Giles noticed the look on Dawn’s face. “Indeed…yes, right,” Giles consulted his notebook again, “It would appear that our good Mr Henry disappeared under mysterious circumstances on New Years Eve eighteen-ninety-nine after he claimed to have retuned from a trip in his time machine!”

“His time machine?” everyone looked at Giles as if he was dressed as a character out of ‘The Rocky Horror Show’.

“Well don’t look at me as if I’m mad,” he replied defensively. “It just so happens that Mr Henry was supposed to be having a New Years Eve dinner party at his house that night. One of his guests was a certain Mr Taylor, a scientist himself and coincidentally a member of the Watchers Council…I found his diaries in the archives.”

“So this time machine is real?” Dawn asked hopefully.

“It’s certainly beginning to look that way,” agreed Giles.

“So,” Dawn turned hopefully towards Willow, “you can bring her back, right?”

“Well,” Willow didn’t look hopeful, “there are some spells that let you reach across time and move things through time, but…”

“But?” Dawn’s voice started to lose any hope it might have once contained.

“Look, Dawnie,” Willow said sympathetically, “we don’t know if they went forward or backward in time or how far. I wouldn’t know where to start looking.”

0=0=0=0

**The Future.**

“GEORGE!” Buffy cried as she ran into the Hall; she saw him sitting at one of the tables, next to him sat one of the Little People women.

“Ah!” George smiled and stood up at Buffy’s approach, “Miss Summers, may I introduce, Miss Weena,” he gestured to the slightly confused Little People woman next to him. “She’s been teaching me the local names for things,” George glanced at the woman before lowering his voice conspiratorially, “and jolly hard work it is too, she has the attention span of a goldfish.”

“Yeah! Great!” Buffy blurted out, “Look the machine’s gone.”

“Gone?” George studied her quizzically, “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

“I mean ‘gone’, not there, stolen!” Buffy snapped.

“Stolen, you say?” George finally grasped what Buffy was trying to tell him.

“At last!” Buffy sighed and rested her hands on her hips.

“We must retrieve it at once!” George turned and started to head for the exit.

“Well, duh!” Buffy threw her hands up in frustration and followed the Victorian explorer.

0=0=0=0

It took them less time than it needs to tell for the little party to reach the point from which the time machine had been taken. Standing in shocked horror, George starred at the space that up until recently had contained his machine. Buffy knelt and looked at the tracks left when the machine had been dragged away, they led off between the bushes. Weena, who’d followed them from the hall peered over Buffy’s shoulder and stared blankly at the tracks.

“Where could it be?” George wailed, “Who could have taken it?”

“To answer your first question,” Buffy stood up and walked over to where George stood, “I’d say your machine is at the end of those tracks and whoever took it was so not very Daniel Boone-ish.”

“Oh-yes,” George appeared to get a hold of his emotions and calmed down, “yes I see what you mean.”

“And secondly, I can’t see Weena’s people taking it,” Buffy gestured at the short woman.

“Why not?” George glanced at Weena who just smiled up into his face.

“Come on!” Buffy almost laughed, “This lot couldn’t organise an overdose in a pharmacy let alone move and hide your machine.”

“Ah, yes,” George nodded and looked down sadly at the little woman by his side, “I see what you mean. Good idea, Miss Summers,” George brushed past Buffy and plunged into the undergrowth, “follow me!”

By the time they’d followed the tracks through the section of bush and out onto the low grass covered hill beyond, Buffy had somehow managed to take the lead; it was easy to see that George was not an outdoors man. Weena on the other hand had skipped lightly between the overgrown shrubs and giggled at George’s attempts to follow her.

On coming out into the sunlight again, Buffy saw that the tracks led across a wide field of tall grass, up the side of a gentle hill towards a large concrete bunker-like structure. The structure reminded Buffy of pictures of military bunkers she’d seen on TV. Where this bunker differed from every other bunker she might have seen (and she had to admit she’d not seen that many) was that this bunker had a huge grotesque statue of the head and shoulders of some horrific beast upon its roof.

Standing and studying the statue, Buffy knew he’d seen the model for the statue earlier that day; the future-vamp was the spitting image of the oversized statue. The effect of the sight of the statue on Weena was quite extraordinary. On catching sight of the thing she started to look frightened; she took hold of George’s hand and tried to pull him back into the bushes. An endless stream of incomprehensible words poured from her mouth. Although neither, Buffy or George could understand a word she said it was obvious that Weena was frightened.

Looking at the terrified little woman, Buffy could guess the source of her fear. This was obviously where the future-vamps hung out during the day, but why had they stolen the machine. Any interest in technology was very un-vamp-like, Buffy reminded herself that eight-hundred-thousand years had passed, things and times changed. Somewhere in all that time the future-vamps must have developed an interest in technology.

“Look,” Buffy turned to face George as he fought off Weena’s attempts to push him back into the bushes, “I’ll follow the tracks, you look after the girl, okay?”

“Yes…yes,” George growing tired of fending off Weena’s attempts to move him picked her up and placed her under his arm, “if you think its safe.”

“I’ll be fine,” Buffy started off towards the bunker as she felt the comforting shape of Mr Pointy tucked into the back of her jeans.

Not bothering to follow the tracks anymore, Buffy cut across the meadow and up the hill. As she reached the summit she noticed that the bunker was much bigger than she’d at first believed. Like so many of the other buildings she’d seen this one was heavily overgrown with small trees and bushes. Unlike the other buildings, however, this one had a closed metal door and the ground in front of the portal was worn bare of grass by the passage over many years of a multitude of feet.

Following the pathway away from the door, Buffy looked down slope to see the path winding off in the general direction of the river and the hall. Feeling an unpleasant prickling sensation between her shoulder blades, Buffy turned back to study the bunker. It appeared to be made of the same mysterious substance as everything else in this weird world of the future. The furrows left in the bare earth by the time machine’s skids led right up to the door where they disappeared. Obviously these doors were functional and the machine had been taken inside the bunker.

Trying to ignore the hideous bust that glared down at her, Buffy went up to the doors and tried to push them open. They didn’t move even a fraction of a millimetre. Next she searched for any hidden controls that might cause the doors to open. Again she failed. Finally she climbed up onto the top of the bunker in the hopes of finding a hatch or air intake that she could crawl through.

“I say!”

Buffy looked down from her perch to see George looking up at her.

“Rum do this,” he studied the great metal door and scratched his head, “don’t cha think?”

“Um, yeah,” Buffy replied guessing what George was talking about, “where’s Weena.”

“Oh I let her go back to the hall,” George called up to Buffy. “Did you find a way in?”

“Oh yeah,” Buffy put her hands on her hips and looked down belligerently at George, “I just climbed up here for the view!”

“I say,” George looked a little crestfallen, “no need to snap, I was just asking.”

“Sorry,” Buffy realised she had snapped at the guy, it wasn’t his fault the machine had been taken, she walked over to the edge of the bunker where she could talk without shouting. “The door’s locked shut, there’s no hidden controls that I could find. There’s no hatches or vents up here just this god-awful statue thing and if you’re interested that path you’re standing on looks like it leads down to the river.”

“A-ha!” George walked over to where the path headed off down slope, “You think this might have something to do with our short friends after all?”

“Maybe,” Buffy jumped down off the roof while George wasn’t looking, “it certainly looks like they come up here quite often,” Buffy was just starting to get an inkling of why the Little People might do that, “perhaps Weena knows more than she’s letting on.”

George looked at her sceptically.

“Yeah, okay,” Buffy shrugged, “grasping at straws here.”

“So,” George turned to study the bunker, “what’s to do?”

“Well we’re gonna have to get inside,” Buffy pointed out the obvious.

“We’ll need tools,” George was obviously thinking out loud.

“I found a museum place earlier,” Buffy explained, “we might find something useful there.”

“You did!” George turned and smiled at Buffy, “Well done, old thing, jolly good show.”

“Yeah,” Buffy grinned, “thought you’d be pleased.”

“Come on,” George started back down the hill, “no time to waste. Heaven knows what the inhabitants of that awful place are doing to my machine.” George marched on unconcerned by the fact he had no idea where Buffy’s museum was, “The sooner we get it back the…” George stopped suddenly causing Buffy to bump into him, he looked off the path to the right, “I say,” he wander off the path and into the grass, “what have we got here?”

0=0=0=0


	7. Chapter 7

7.

**The Future.**

“Listen,” Buffy cocked her head to one side as they peered into the well.

“A sort of ‘thrumming’,” George said quietly, “like machinery.”

“Yeah,” Buffy slowly nodded her head; she held her hand out over the opening, “feel that?”

“Heat,” George replied succinctly, “this must be some sort of air venting system.”

The two explorers stepped back and looked around at the dozen or more well-like structures dotting this side of the hill. The first ‘well’ that George had spotted was hidden in some bushes just off the track. They’d walked over to examine it only to find that it was a tumbled down affair. They’d both dismissed it as just another example of whatever civilisation had built all the wonders around them. The well had been broken down and was full of broken branches and loose masonry. Pushing on a little further they’d come out of the bushes on to the grassy side of the hill and found dozens of the structures scattered across the meadow. Each ‘well’ was about three feet high and about eight feet across. When they looked into the ‘wells’ they saw only darkness instead of water; each well appeared to disappear into the depths of the hill.

“Notice how rough the finish is,” George ran his hand over the wall that surrounded each well or vent, “like it was added as an after thought.”

“Or as a replacement for a more complex aircon system?” Buffy suggested. 

“Aircon?” George looked at her hoping for enlightenment.

“Air conditioning,” Buffy explained, “it’s a way of…”

“Yes I know what air-conditioning is,” George replied, “Yes you could be right,” George stood back from the vent opening. “If there is a more advanced society living under the hill with machines and such; they’d need to vent excess heat and draw in fresh air.”

“Right,” Buffy nodded her head slowly; the idea that there might be some sort of future-vamp civilisation underground was worrying, “do you think they supply everything for the Little People?”

“I don’t see why not,” George agreed, “but why?”

“No idea,” Buffy lied, she had a pretty good idea why the future-vamps wanted to keep the Little People happy and well fed.

“This,” George gestured to the wall surrounding the vent, “seems to suggest that even the civilisation possessing all the machines is in decline.”

“You mean they can’t even repair their own air-con?” Buffy replied as she glanced away to check on the sun’s position; it was getting closer to the horizon, they’d need to get under cover soon.

“Why yes,” George said sadly, he sighed, “I’d really thought better of the human race,” he sighed, “that it should all come to this…” His words faded away to nothing rather like the human race seemed to be. “They have no art, you know?”

“Sorry?” Buffy turned from the sun to look at George.

“Not your fault, Miss Summers,” George said mistaking Buffy’s meaning. “The Little People, they don’t paint or make anything, even the most primitive of tribes paint on cave walls or make decorations for themselves or their artefacts. It seems that the Little People have lost even that basic skill. As far as I can see they use nothing that isn’t made for them. They use it once then throw it away…very wasteful.”

“Never mind,” Buffy walked over and put a supportive hand on George’s shoulder, “come on,” she encouraged, “it’ll be dark soon we better be getting back to the hall.”

Leading the despondent engineer/scientist back down the hill, Buffy glanced over her shoulder to where the great statue of the hideous creature stood, her flesh crawled as her eyes fell upon it. Tomorrow she’d have to come back, go down into the depths of the hill, take on whatever she found there and bring back the time machine. Once out in the open, George could repair the machine and they could go home. What would happen if George couldn’t repair the machine she didn’t want to think about.

0=0=0=0

**The Rosenberg-Scarpone Residence.**

Sitting up in bed, Kennedy watched as Willow dried her hair after taking a shower.

“You think we can get her back?” she called over the sound of Willow’s hair drier.

“That depends,” Willow switched off the hair drier and turned to look at her partner.

“Depends?” Kennedy didn’t like the tone of Willow’s voice or the defeated look on her face.

“Yeah,” Willow agree miserably, “it depends if you can find a witch way better than me.”

“Oh, I see,” Kennedy gave a half smile and nodded her head, “so this is what it’s all about.”

“All, what about?” Willow asked defensively.

“Oh the entire wanting to be punished, thing,” Kennedy pointed out, “you know that bullwhip would’ve hurt?”

“Yeah, well I need to be punished I’m…” Willow didn’t get to say what she was.

“Now look here Willow Rosenberg,” Kennedy got out of bed and walked over to her lover, “you’re the most powerful witch in the world, and the kindest, sweetest most beautiful woman I’ve ever had the luck to meet…I mean you live with me, so that must make you a saint!”

“But…” once again Kennedy didn’t give Willow a chance to slip into a self loathing babble.

“But me no buts,” Kennedy quoted quickly. “now, I happen to know that if there’s a way of bringing ‘Little Miss Saint Buffy of the Stake’ back from wherever she’s gone and got herself lost. You’re the one to do it…okay?”

“Okay,” Willow admitted.

“Now stop being silly and come to bed,” Kennedy walked back to their bed and climbed in. “There’s going to be no more talk of what a bad witch you are and how you can’t do stuff. There’s also going to be no more ‘Mistress of Pain’ outfits and as far as whips and chains go they’re right out…well, maybe not the chains, but the other stuff goes tomorrow.”

“Yes Mistress,” Willow smiled as she let her robe fall to the floor.

“You’ve listened to nothing I’ve said, have you?” Kennedy frowned at the naked woman that stood next to the bed.”

“No Mistress,” Willow tried to look both innocent and naughty at the same time.

“Oh for gods sake!” Kennedy lunged for Willow and pulled the redhead into their bed and held her down across her lap. “I can see,” Kennedy sighed as she raised her free hand, “I’m going to have to spank some sense into you after all!”

0=0=0=0

**The Future.**

On reaching the hall, Buffy and George found the strange fruit and vegetables laid out as they had the night before. Once again the Little People came in for their evening meal after a hard day’s play. Tonight, however, Buffy and George were joined by Weena who listened uncomprehendingly to what they were saying to each other. Describing all she could remember about her visit to the museum, Buffy saw George’s spirits lift a little (she didn’t mention her fight with the future-vamp). Expressing the hope that he could find tools that would let him repair the machine, George seemed to be quite animated. But then it was like he remembered that the machine was no longer in their possession and he became depressed once more.

“Hey,” Buffy smiled brightly, “don’t worry about it. Tomorrow I’ll climb down one of those vents, find the time machine and get it back outside. We’ll soon be home.”

George looked at her disbelievingly.

“It’s very kind of you to offer, Miss Summers,” George shook his head slowly, “but it is I who’ll have to venture below ground. I couldn’t possibly let you go into danger while I remain safely on the surface.”

“Don’t you come the Victorian Gentleman with me,” Buffy wagged her finger in a very Giles-like manner, “I’ll be perfectly safe,” as if by magic Mr Pointy appeared in her hand, “after all, Mr Pointy will be with me.”

Smiling indulgently as if at a wayward child, George changed the subject and gestured to Weena. “You know, their language is very simple?”

“It is?” Buffy picked out one of the peach like fruits that she particularly liked and bit into it.

“Yes,” George smiled reassuringly at Weena, she seemed to realise that she was the subject up for discussion. “Two or three word sentences. As far as I can tell they have no words to allow them to discuss philosophical arguments. I doubt they have much of a concept of past or future, to them everything is the ‘now’.”

“Not surprised,” Buffy lay back on her cushions, “every day must be the same as the last. It’s probably been that way for centuries.”

“My god,” George Gasped, “you’re right. I’d not thought of it in those terms, how utterly, utterly boring!”

Buffy laughed at the look of horror on George’s face, she glanced out of the open door to see it was pitch black outside. Inside it looked like dusk, there was light coming from somewhere but she couldn’t see from where, she yawned covering her mouth with her hand.

“I don’t know about you but I’ve been travelling all day,” Buffy yawned again, “I feel like I could sleep for a month.”

Standing up, Buffy bid George a good night and headed off towards the underground sleeping chamber. Her feet felt like they were made of lead as she dragged herself down the stairs. Her mind was so fatigued that it never occurred to her that as a slayer she could go days without proper sleep. Although she’d run several miles and fought with a future-vamp, in reality she’d done nothing that she wouldn’t have done before going out to visit friends and have a good time.

Not even bothering to try and find the bed she’d used the previous night, Buffy slumped down on the first free bed she came to. Some part of her brain did register that the Little People were collapsing onto their mattresses all around her and not indulging in what appeared to be their nightly orgies. Struggling to keep her eyes open, Buffy sat on the edge of her mattress and tried to pull her boots off. Falling backwards, she gave up the unequal struggle and fell fast a sleep.

0=0=0=0

Upstairs, George watched as all the Little People stumbled off to wherever it was they slept. He determined to follow them in a little while as he’d spent a most uncomfortable night in the hall the night before and to sleep on even a primitive bed was better than sleeping curled up under the table. He turned to Weena to try and get her to teach him some more vocabulary, particularly what the Little People called themselves. He was quite shocked to find that the little woman had fallen asleep after resting her head on the table.

“How odd,” George frowned to himself as he nudged Weena, she didn’t stir.

Standing up, George looked around the dimly lit hall, nothing appeared to be amiss. As he walked over to the door, he started to wonder about Buffy.

“Strange,” George said to himself, “that Miss Summers went to bed so early she always seems so full of energy and…”

A frightening thought presented itself for his inspection. Miss Summers had indeed been full of energy in fact unnaturally so considering she’d spent all day exploring. If her account was to be believed and he had no reason to doubt her, she’d run…run mind you, several miles. These future women must be similar to the women of ancient Sparta he told himself. It was only after she’d sat to eat that Miss Summers had started to look tired and worn. By now, George was standing by the door looking out into the night. Seeing nothing untoward he turned to face the interior of the hall again, just in time to see several grey, ghost-like figures appear from out of the shadows at the far end of the hall.

“I say!” George called as he started briskly towards the intruders, “Who the devil are you?”

The grey creatures appeared surprised to see him and they uttered surprised grunts at George’s sudden appearance. For his part George was quite disgusted at the look of these foul creatures of the night. Their skin was a light grey, they had long white hair growing untidily from their heads and most surprisingly from their arms. For a moment, George was put in mind of the leather fringes on the shirts that American frontiersmen sometimes wore. As he got closer, George noticed the vile creature’s distorted faces, their long sharp looking fangs and the way their eyes glowed redly in the gloom. For their part the monsters, there were about half a dozen of them, spread out in a line and attempted to out flank him.

“Oh, no you don’t,” George put up his fists and back peddled away from the foul fiends (for that’s what he was convinced they were). “I’ll have you know I was my university’s boxing champion.”

This information didn’t appear to put the creatures off as one of their number charged at him snarling like an animal. The night-fiend came at George its arms out ready to grab him in a bear hug and its fingers held like talons. It was at this point that George realised that these creatures weren’t even as tall as Miss Summers. As the first of the monsters came within range he lashed out with his fists sending his attacker reeling away with two fast jabs.

“Have at you! You-you bounders!” exhibiting amazing footwork, George danced towards the other creatures and sent each one spinning away into the half light with a series of lightening fast jabs to their heads and upper bodies.

Feeling justifiably proud of his performance, George moved away from his victims all the while keeping his fists up ready to defend himself. It soon became apparent that his opponents had beaten a hasty retreat into the depths of the hall. Lowering his fists (slightly disappointed that the fight had been such an easy one) George set out towards the stairs leading down to what Miss Summers had referred to as the sleeping chambers. No doubt she’d want to know what had occurred and his suspicion that a sleeping draft had been insinuated into their food. Obviously he’d not eaten whatever the poison had been put into. When he thought back to their meal he remembered that Miss Summers had appeared to particularly enjoyed the peach like fruits. He’d never liked peaches so had not eaten any, that was what must have been poisoned, he reasoned. 

Finding himself in what he thought must be the communal sleeping area, George had to stop to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. It was only as his eyes became more accustomed to the semi-darkness that he saw more of the grey ghost-like fiends moving about the chamber. There seemed to be a dozen or more of them, each carrying the sleeping body of a Little Person across their pallid misshapen shoulders. His mind rebelled in disgust as terrible imaginings of what these foul monsters must want with the frail, bright, child-like people. Almost feeling sick with revulsion he saw something that turned his heart to ice. Two of the foul creatures were attempting to drag off Miss Summers’ unconscious body.

“UNHAND HER YOU BRUTES!” George cried as he once again brought up his fists and advanced to do battle.

0=0=0=0


	8. Chapter 8

8.

**The Future.**

“Take that, you rotter!” Two left jabs and a right cross sent one of the vile kidnappers staggering back into the darkness. “And as for you, you bounder!” 

George turned on the second creature as it stood holding Buffy’s shoulders and looked at him stupidly. Two right jabs flattened the creature’s nose and sent it lurching away from its tormentor. It dropped Buffy hastily, her head hitting the floor with a resounding *CLUNK!*. For a moment George stood over Buffy’s limp form and looked down at her in dismay.

“Oh! I do beg your pardon,” George apologised before pressing his attack on the wounded monster. “Take that!” George advanced steadily as he forced the creature back, “And that!” The cold grey fiend reeled under George’s blows, “And finally…THAT!”

George’s fist hit the foul brute under the jaw snapping its head back violently. Its head wasn’t the only thing to go ‘snap’. The power of George’s punch was so violent that it forced the creature’s head back far enough to snap its spinal column. There was a sound like a dead branch breaking followed by a whoosh as the monster turned to ash.

“Oh I say!” George looked down at the remains of Buffy’s attacker in confusion; there was nothing about ones opponent turning to ash in the Marques of Queensbury rules.

Hearing a noise behind him, George turned to find two of the vile creatures trying to drag Buffy away by her legs.

“Be off with you!” George rushed over to confront the kidnappers but they ran off into the darkness before he could give them the thrashing they so richly deserved.

Confident that the creatures had finally fled, George knelt down next to Buffy, he eyed her still form with concern.

“I say,” George gently patted Buffy’s cheeks, “I say, Miss Summers, are you all right?” 

This query elicited a groan from Buffy; George was at a loss as to the correct course of action. Would it be considered too forward of him if he were to pick her up and place her on one of the nearby mattresses; wasn’t there something about loosening an unconscious person's clothing? In a quandary of doubt and indecision, George settled for rubbing Buffy’s wrists vigorously.

“Ow,” Buffy groaned as she raised her free hand to her forehead; the pounding in her skull felt like the after effects of one of her alcoholic binges.

“Thank god you’re awake,” George sighed with relief and rather reluctantly relinquished his hold on Buffy’s hand, “How do you feel, Miss Summers?”

“Like a train hit me,” Buffy started to push herself upright, but George put his hand on her shoulder and tried to get her to lie down again.

“Lie still, Miss Summers,” George insisted, “you’ve had a nasty bump on the head.”

Shrugging off George’s hand, Buffy felt the back of her head; sure enough there was a lump there the size of a chicken’s egg.

“Just as well I’ve got a thick head,” Buffy got herself up into a sitting position and looked around, “what happened?”

Explaining the best he could George related his story before coming to its curious conclusion.

“…then a very odd thing happened,” he explained, “I struck this blighter a punch under his jaw forcing his head back, you see?”

Buffy did in fact see, she saw better than George could imagine.

“I must have broken the poor brute’s neck because there was a loud snapping sound and...” George paused for a moment. “Well, I know this might sound strange to you but the monster turned to ash before his body hit the floor.”

“He did?” Buffy looked up into George’s worried eyes, she held out her hand to him, “Help me up would you?”

Standing up, George pulled Buffy to her feet.

“Yes he did,” George once again reluctantly let go of Buffy’s hand, he found the physical contact with another human being comforting, “here,” he said pointing to a pile of ash just visible on the floor, “here are its remains.”

“Yeah,” Buffy looked down at the forlorn little pile of vampire remains, “that looks like vamp-dust to me.”

Shaking her head, Buffy winced and placed her hand on her fore head before sighing and looking once more into George’s troubled eyes.

“George,” Buffy took the man by the arm and started to lead him towards the stairs that led to the hall, “there’s a few things you need to know.”

0=0=0=0

**Kenworth Street, Middlesbrough.**

“Play it again, Willow,” Giles instructed.

Making a gesture and repeating a word in a language so old that even the oldest demons didn’t know what it meant. Willow, Giles and Kennedy watched as Buffy struggled with a man before falling into the machine just before they and it vanished.

“Well,” Giles took off his glasses and started to polish, “I have to agree; although it’s hardly a Police Box or a DeLorian, that contraption has to be a time machine…once more please Willow.”

Again Willow repeated her gesture and magic word before leaning against the wall to watch the scene play out again. It was like watching a loop of film over and over again. Buffy came in through the window, she grappled with the man and then she let him go. Next there was some sort of argument, the twins appeared causing the man to tumble into the machine and grab Buffy.

“Pity you can’t get sound,” Giles muttered.

“Hey,” Kennedy sprang to the defence of her girlfriend, “you’re lucky to get this much.”

“Yes,” Giles looked up at the younger slayer, “yes, while I don’t mean to seem ungrateful sound would be useful.”

“So,” Willow pushed herself away from the wall, “I think we’re all agreed it’s a time machine, so, where did they go?”

“Indeed,” Giles agreed, “forward or back?”

“Forward,” Kennedy announced confidently.

“How could you tell, sweetie?” Willow asked.

“I noticed there was a readout or something,” Kennedy explained, “once I’d noticed it I concentrated on it every time you replayed the scene. I’m sure it started out with yesterday’s date and then when they fell into the machine I just saw it start to wind upwards just before they vanished.”

“That was remarkably quick witted of you to spot that,” Giles observed.

“Heard of ‘Kim’s game’?” Kennedy gave Giles a lopsided smile; Giles nodded his head. “My watcher used to make me play it at least once a day.”

“Kim’s game?” Willow looked from Kennedy to Giles.

“A way of improving ones memory and observational skills,” Giles explained, “well then, if what Kennedy says is right…”

“And it is,” Kennedy pointed out.

“Then Buffy is lost in the future,” Giles concluded.

“Or one possible future,” Willow pointed out, she saw the puzzled look on Giles’ face and tried to explain. “Look the future isn’t set its determined by the decisions made in its past.” Giles still looked puzzled, Willow tried to explain some more, “Imagine if I was to turn Kennedy into a mouse and she got eaten by a cat, that would course one future to happen, but, there’d also be a load of futures where I didn’t turn Kennedy into a mouse or she didn’t get eaten and so on.”

“Ah! I see,” Giles nodded his head, “every choice we make changes the future, so…”

“So,” Willow sighed miserably, “every choice we’ve made since yesterday has changed the future and we’ve no idea which future Buffy is in.”

“Which future?” Giles took off his glasses and immediately put them back on.

“Yes,” Kennedy stepped forward, “I’ve read about this, look every second of every day more and more futures are coming into existence, they all exist somewhere and Buffy is trapped in one of billions of billions of possible futures.”

“I’m surprised there’s enough room for them all,” Giles pointed out.

“It’s nothing when you’ve got infinity to play with,” Willow pointed out helplessly.

“Couldn’t we go back in time and stop all this from happening?” Giles wondered.

“If we did,” Willow pointed out, “we run a risk of bumping into ourselves from another future…”

“And that would be bad,” Kennedy chimed in.

“A time paradox,” Willow explained, “it could cause the entire fabric of space and time to implode destroying everything…but I expect we’ll do it anyway.”

“Yes,” Giles agreed, “I could see how that could be so.”

“So,” Kennedy looked at Giles and Willow, “what do we do? I’ve got to say that while Buffy isn’t exactly my bestest friend, even I would miss her if she was gone permanently.”

“That’s sweet of you honey,” Willow smiled at her partner.

“Oh,” Kennedy gave Willow a ‘butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth-because I’m a cold heartless bitch’ look, “I’d miss being better than her.”

Willow’s eyebrows came together as she frowned from underneath them.

“Yes, quite so,” Giles felt he needed to say something to fill the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over the room.

“Just joking,” Kennedy smiled unconvincingly, “of course I want Buffy back.”

“Yeah right,” Willow turned to look at the spot where the time machine had once stood. “Look, all this was caused by science.”

“Science?” Giles waited for clarification.

“Right, the machine everything was built using scientific principles,” Willow hesitated, “as far as I can tell. What I am sure of was there was no magics used, so…” Willow let her words tail off as she looked hopefully at Giles.

“Sorry you’ve lost me,” Giles was in fact totally out of his depth, time machines and time travel weren’t covered at the watcher's school.

“What about the wacky notion of magic?” Willow wanted to know.

“Magic?” Giles and Kennedy exchanged uncertain looks.

“Look,” Willow’s voice grew more confident as she spoke, “I’ve been doing some research and I found a rather obscure text that points to a book of spells that deals with all forms of magical travel…including time travel!”

“And just where would this book be?” Giles asked disbelievingly.

“Well,” Willow smiled like a naughty schoolgirl, “last I checked it was in your library.”

0=0=0=0

**The Future.**

Waking with a slight headache, Buffy yawned and sat up. The hall was much the same as when she’d finally fallen asleep the previous night. Having stayed up late explaining the facts of life (the ones about vampires not the ones about where babies come from) Buffy expected to feel worse than she actually did. Obviously clean living and being a slayer were a great help towards health and vitality. George had taken the news about vampires unusually well, he’d explained that one of his friends had been mixed up in something that he thought, at the time, was plain hokum. Now he realised that what Taylor had said was indeed true, or at least some of it. Looking across the table, Buffy saw George appear, they’d spent the night ‘together’ under the table, neither of them had wanted to risk going down into the sleeping chamber again. Pushing herself to her feet Buffy stretched, sniffed and pulled a face.

“I stink!” she announced to the world in general and George in particular, “I’m going to get a shower.”

“Do you think that’s safe?” George climbed to his own feet and glanced around the hall. “They might have come back.”

“Don’t worry,” Buffy called as she made her way towards the stairs, “I doubt they’ll come back just yet,” she smiled, “not after the fright you gave them.”

“Oh! Yes, of course,” George smiled proudly, “I-I’ll keep watch then.”

“You do that,” Buffy waved as she started down the stairs.

Once again, Buffy found the washroom deserted, obviously the Little People weren’t early risers. As she undressed and stepped under the hot water of the shower, she used the time to think about what was going on. Obviously the future-vamps put some sort of knock out potion into the food. Once everyone was fast asleep, and judging by the Little People’s total inactivity during the fight, dead to the world. The future-vamps came out and took away their victims

As she soaped herself all over, Buffy considered the fight between George and the vamps. It would seem that these future-vamps were a lot weaker than the vamps of her own time. After all, they didn’t need to be strong, just look at their prey, they clearly had no need for super strength. Letting the water rinse the soup suds off her body, Buffy turned off the water and let the warm air dry her off. Stepping out of the shower cubicle she looked down at her clothes, they were dirty and rank and she had no great desire to put them on again. Bundling up her dirty clothes she went in search of something clean to wear.

0=0=0=0

“Miss Summers!” George averted his eyes and turned his back to Buffy at her approach.

“What’s wrong, George?” Buffy dumped her clothes on the table, she’d try and wash them later, if she had time.

The clothes supplied for the Little People were made of a material with a satin-like feel and finish to it and were made on the principle that one size fits all. While this was fine for the Little People it wasn’t fine for Buffy. What had been knee length and quite loose fitting on the Little People was short and figure hugging on her. Reacting to George’s reaction, Buffy stopped and looked down at herself, she had to admit she’d not worn anything quite this short since her first year at High School. Also there was the problem about the lack of underwear. Well, she sighed to herself, as long as she was careful and didn’t bend over too much she’d be fine. Buffy made a mental note to rinse out her underwear right after breakfast. Keeping her legs demurely together, Buffy sat down and arranged herself so that George wouldn’t be distracted by her legs.

“Come on George,” Buffy called, “sit down and have your breakfast.”

George turned hesitantly and looked down at her and breathed a sigh of relief, he sat down across the table from Buffy.

“Look,” Buffy reached for one of the orange-like fruits, “this is only temporary until my own stuff is washed and dried…and honestly George, you could do with taking a shower and maybe washing that shirt of yours.”

“Yes,” George agreed slowly, “you’re probably right.” Once again George paused to collect his thoughts, “I’m sorry if I appeared startled by your appearance, Miss Summers.”

“Startled?” Buffy laughed, “Anyone would think you’d never seen…oh!” A thought struck Buffy, perhaps George hadn’t ever seen a girl in a short dress before. “No its me that should apologise I didn’t realise…you know different times and such.”

“Indeed,” George agreed slowly, “as you say, different times. I assume from your mode of dress that female fashion is more, um, revealing in your time?”

“You could say that,” Buffy nodded as she reached for more fruit, “but I think what we’re going to do about the future-vamps is more important than fashion.”

“Agreed,” George nodded his head, “while the return of the time machine must be our first priority. We cannot leave these poor souls,” George gestured to the Little People that were coming up from the sleeping chamber and acting as if nothing had changed, “to fall victim to those foul brutes.”

“I wasn’t intending to,” Buffy agreed, she turned to study the Little People. “Where’s Weena, I’d have thought she’d join us for breakfast,” Buffy smiled at George, “I think she likes you.”

“Oh no Miss Summers,” George sighed, “I expect she’d grown bored with us, I…” George’s voice faded away as a terrible thought crossed his mind. “Oh my god!”

Buffy and George shared a horrified look as the same thoughts came to their minds simultaneously.

“NO GEORGE!” Buffy jumped up and grabbed hold of George’s arm as he headed for the door. “If she needs rescuing we’ll do it together.”

0=0=0=0


	9. Chapter 9

9.

After hurriedly dressing in her soiled clothes once more, Buffy came back up into the hall and looked around for George but there was no sign of him.

“Gods damn it!” Buffy snapped as she pushed her way past the Little People who were heading outside for another hard day’s play as if nothing had happened the night before.

For just a moment, Buffy felt angry at the Little People; how could they go on as if nothing had changed. Surely they must notice that some of their friends had gone missing. Surely they’d want to get them back and not leave them to be sucked dry by the future-vamps. But as she roughly pushed the childlike creatures out of her way, Buffy realised that they were acting no differently than the people of Sunnydale had.

How many people in her old home town knew someone that had died off ‘neck rupture’? Only the terminally stupid could be unaware of what was going on around them, yet… Yet people carried on with their normal lives as if nothing odd was happening; she could count on the fingers of one hand the people or families that had moved out of Sunnydale to somewhere safer like Beirut. The little People were no different, in fact they probably didn’t know any different, this must have been going on for centuries and must seem quite natural.

The Little People had food and shelter; all their needs were cared for. So what if every few nights the ‘terrors’ came and took a few of their number; they just went to feed the ones that supplied them with this otherwise idyllic life. It was only then that Buffy realised she’d never seen an old Little Person. She shook her head sadly, what a great life; play all day, screw all night, never grow old…because something came out of the night and sucked you dry!

By the time Buffy had got to the great doorway all she could see of George was his little stick-like figure heading up the side of the hill towards the bunker.

“Duh, George!” Buffy rolled her eyes.

If he’d waited for her in the hall they’d probably be in the future-vamps stronghold by now. Surely he must realise that the vamps had an entrance into the hall somewhere, all they’d have to do was to find their way in, confront the pathetic excuses for vampires and be back with Weena by lunchtime. But no, George had to rush off, just what did he hope to achieve going off at half cock like that?

Trotting off up the hillside, Buffy rapidly caught up with George.

“GEORGE!” She cried as she came up behind him, “Wait up will you?”

Stopping, George turned to face Buffy.

“Miss Summers!” He panted, “Please go back, this is no place for a woman.”

“F’Christ’s sake!” Buffy rolled her eyes yet again. “Look,” she said as patiently as she could, “I thought you understood; I’m the slayer, super girl, rescuing people from the nasty monsters is what I do, it’s my purpose in life. You wouldn’t want me to go around with no purpose in life.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Summers,” George balled his fists in frustration, “where I come from a young woman’s purpose in life is to look after her husband and children as god intended.”

“Oh for…” Buffy found herself talking to George’s back as he marched determinedly on up the hill.

Running the few paces needed to catch him up; Buffy brought George to halt by grabbing hold of the waist band of his trousers.

“See,” Buffy smiled as George twisted around to face her, “You’re not going anywhere.” 

George tried to loosen Buffy’s grip on his trousers.

“I can wait all day,” Buffy informed him.

“MISS SUMMERS!” George shouted angrily, “I’ve never hit a woman before but…”

“But what?” Buffy sneered, “You’ll punch me? Like to see you try.”

Letting go of his trousers Buffy stood waiting for George to try and hit her; instead, now free of Buffy’s grasp on his trousers, he turned with a self congratulatory “HA!” and continued up the hill.

“OOOOOH!” Buffy chased after the determined inventor, “That’s cheating! You’re supposed to try and punch me but I knock you down and you realise what a jerk you’re being and…”

George stopped suddenly and turned to face Buffy who collided with him.

“Sorry,” Buffy mumbled as she took a step away from George.

“No it was my fault,” George informed her; for a moment George just stood there looking down at Buffy, finally a wry smile crossed his lips. “I surmise from the context in which you use the word ‘jerk’ that it does not mean; yank, tug, pull or wrench?”

Buffy shook her head.

“Again from context,” George looked down at the dusty path, “you think I’m being foolish?”

“Something like that,” Buffy agreed. “Look George, I want to get Weena back as much as you do…well maybe not quite as much.” Buffy suddenly found herself thinking maybe she did, after all she was ‘gay now’ and Weena was very attractive and shorter than her, “Whatever; but how were you going to rescue her?”

“Ah! Yes,” George nodded his head wisely, “I’d not actually thought about that.”

“See,” Buffy grinned, “come on,” she caught hold of George’s arm as she started to walk up the hill again, “two heads are better than one and such like. Don’t worry George we’ll soon have her out.”

If she isn’t already dead, was Buffy’s dark thought.”

0=0=0=0

**Kenworth Street, Middlesbrough.**

“Come on Dawnie,” Willow advanced on Dawn holding up the syringe, “I only want a little of your blood.”

“NO!” Dawn moved to stand behind Faith, “Look Willow you’re acting all weird so you’re not sticking that thing in me, and-and why does it have to be my blood?”

“The spell requires a blood sacrifice,” Willow continued her slow and slightly menacing advance on Dawn, “and Buffy _is_ your sister.”

“BUT!” Squeaked Dawn from behind Faith who was just about to defend her girlfriend from the insanely smiling, syringe wielding witch.

“Here sweetie,” Kennedy came up behind Willow and easily took the syringe from Willow’s hand.

Willow hissed angrily.

“Just how much blood do you need?” Kennedy ignored her hissing girlfriend and looked at the syringe; it did seem rather big and the needle looked excessively long.

“Not a lot,” Willow snapped, her fun spoilt, “about an ounce or so.”

“Okay then,” Kennedy found herself looking into Faith’s eyes, she shrugged helplessly, “this is why I don’t like Willow doing these powerful spells,” she informed the other slayer, “but does anyone listen to me?” Kennedy sighed resignedly, “No they don’t…the sooner we get this over with the better.”

“Can ya deal with Red,” Faith whispered so quietly only Kennedy could hear her, “y’know if…”

“I think so,” Kennedy didn’t sound one-hundred percent certain, “if it all goes pear shaped we’ll see how much she really loves me.”

“Okay,” reluctantly Faith stepped to one side, “you’re up Dawnie.”

“Okay,” Dawn started to roll up her sleeve, “as long as its you doing it, Kennie.”

Dawn eyed Willow warily as Kennedy rubbed her arm with a sterile swab and stuck the needle into a vein. Not knowing what an ‘ounce’ of blood was she drew enough blood to fill the syringe.

“Ow!” Said Dawn as Kennedy pulled out the needle and applied a Band-Aid.

“Right!” Kennedy turned to Willow, “Now what?”

“Give it here!” Willow took the syringe eagerly from Kennedy’s hand and held it reverently in her own before turning towards ‘the gate’.

The Gate was in fact a simple wooden door frame that Xander had knocked up for them before wisely disappearing off to work. The Gate stood in the centre of a pretty standard looking pentagram with the usual symbols drawn on the floor. All this was stuff that Dawn, Faith and Kennedy had seen before. Willow hadn’t started to act all ‘screwy’ until she’d started drawing the symbols on the gate itself.

Watching closely, Kennedy had noticed how the symbols appeared to writhe insanely across the surface of the door frame; she’d also noticed how her lover’s roots were starting to turn black. It was only then that she realised why Willow had been so insistent that Giles should not be present. Willow had even gone so far as to tell Giles that she’d be doing the ceremony in the afternoon when she was in fact doing it in the morning. If Giles had been here he’d have stopped Willow long ago.

“Okay,” Kennedy thought it was time to mention what they’d all been thinking about, “who’s going to go through and bring Buffy back?”

There was silence for just a fraction of a second too long before anyone spoke.

“I’ll go,” Dawn stepped forward, “like, Buffy is my sister and all.”

“No, kid,” Faith stepped around Dawn to stand facing Kennedy, “this is a job for a slayer, y’know?”

Kennedy noted the guilty look on Dawn’s face as she didn’t object.

“Ya think this is gonna work?” Faith asked Kennedy quietly, she got a helpless shrug in reply.

“Okay, honey,” Kennedy turned towards Willow and asked brightly, “what happens next?”

For a moment, Willow appeared to ignore her girlfriend, she just went on chanting quietly to herself while she painted the door frame with Dawn’s blood. Finally she stopped and turned to face the other people in the room.

“Okay,” Willow’s voice sounded slightly breathless but otherwise fairly normal she’d lost the insane edge she’d had to it only moments before. “All Faith has to do is step through the gateway. She should come out the other side a few minutes before Buffy comes into the room. All she has to do then is grab Buffy and come back through the gate, okay?”

“’Should’?” Queried Faith.

0=0=0=0

**The Future.**

Standing in front of the bunker, Buffy placed her hands on her hips and wondered how they were going to get in. The place hadn’t changed, the bunker still looked all too solid, the doors were still firmly shut and looked as if they would continue to resist even slayer strength until doomsday came ‘round.

“What’s wrong?” George asked from where he was fashioning himself a pointy stick.

“Like, how do we get in?” Buffy turned to look at George.

“I thought we could climb down one of the air vent things,” George brandished his weapon.

“Yeah, right!” Buffy frowned at herself, why hadn’t she thought of that?

“I noticed on our last visit,” George continued eagerly as he headed for the nearest of the vents, “that they appeared to be equipped with hand and footholds.”

“Yeah, of course,” Buffy followed George towards the first vent, “silly me for not noticing that.”

0=0=0=0

Climbing down into the menacing darkness, Buffy heard the machine-like sounds start to get louder. The further down they went the hotter it seemed to get, they must be getting closer to the machines that the future-vamps used to make everything for the Little People. After about five minutes of climbing down the uneven ladder made of the roughly hewn hand and footholds, Buffy started to notice a soft red glow coming from below, obviously, she thought, they must be getting closer to their objective.

Dropping the last few feet into a narrow tunnel, Buffy looked both ways before signalling George to drop to the tunnel floor. The tunnel walls were perfectly smooth giving the impression that they had been made with some kind of giant laser that melted the stone and earth. This was in marked contrast to the rough finish of the vents and seemed to support their idea that the vents had been added relatively recently. An eerie blood red glow came from basic looking light fitting that had been attached haphazardly to the tunnel roof. These too had every appearance of being added to the structure when the more advanced lighting system had failed.

“Which way?” Buffy whispered.

“I’m completely in your hands, Miss Summers,” George informed her, “after all, you are the expert in these things.”

Remembering the old definition of ‘expert’; ‘a has-been under pressure’, Buffy led the way towards where she thought the bunker on the surface was situated. As they moved along the tunnel the sounds of machinery clanking and groaning got louder and louder. Suddenly a thought struck Buffy and she came to a stop causing George to bump into her again.

“Sorry,” George apologised, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Buffy turned so she could see George, “it’s just that a thought occurred to me.”

“That’s very clever of you,” George sounded slightly puzzled, “but shouldn’t we be getting on?”

“Yeah sure,” Buffy continued on down the tunnel, “but I was thinking, all that noise right?”

“Yes what of it?”

“Sounds like pretty heavy industry, right?”

“I suppose it does,” George agreed.

“So,” Buffy came to a halt again, “what are they making?”

Opening his mouth to speak, George realised that Buffy had a point. What could these underground monsters be building; surely the manufacture of the smocks the Little People wore and the cultivation of fruit and vegetables didn’t necessitate all this heavy machinery.

“Perhaps…” George lost the power of speech as they came out into a huge cavern filled with massive, clanking and groaning machinery that towered over their heads. “I say…”

“Yeah, right,” Buffy agreed, “I say…”

For a moment the two rescuers stood in the mouth of the tunnel watching as great wheels turned being pushed by massive pistons. Red, back lit, smoke and steam escaped from pipes that snaked across the floor and from machine to machine. But for all the movement, steam and activity the machines didn’t appear to be doing anything. George looked down at Buffy as she looked up at him.

“You know, Miss Summers,” George spoke loudly enough to be heard over the cacophony of noise being made by all the machinery, “bearing in mind all we have seen of this world in our admittedly short stay. I would hazard a guess that this machine and all the others doesn’t produce anything!”

“But why…?” 

“Like everything else here,” George explained, “even this society has deteriorated to a point that looking after the machines has become mere instinct. It has no reason, no meaning and no end product. It simply has no point, its just being done because it’s always been done.”

“But…” Buffy’s objection faded away to nothing.

Remembering how Giles had told her recorded human history had lasted six thousand years, she had travelled over eight-hundred-thousand years. Anything could have happened in that time, even vamps becoming technologically minded and taking over the world.

“Look,” Buffy tried to clear her mind of all the terrible things that must have happened to bring this world into being, “we’ve still got to find Weena and her friends.”

“Yes of course,” George agreed, “lead on Miss Summers.”

0=0=0=0

**Kenworth Street, Middlesbrough.**

Stepping through the gate way, Faith started to regret volunteering for this mission. In one step she had gone from daylight to darkness. The room was much as she’d just left it except that it was missing her friends and all Willow’s witchy paraphernalia. Thinking she must have arrived well before the guy with his time machine, all she had to do was to sit in the shadows and wait for Buffy to turn up.

As if to prove her a liar there was a soft flash of light as Buffy appeared in the middle of the room.

“B!” Faith cried in surprise.

“Faith?” Buffy gave Faith a puzzled look.

“Ya gotta come back with me!” The two women explained simultaneously.

0=0=0=0


	10. Chapter 10

10.

**Kenworth Street, Middlesbrough.**

“Come on Dawnie,” once again Willow advanced on Dawn syringe in hand, “just a little more blood. I mean you _do_ want Buffy back, don’t you?”

“Back off, Red,” Faith stepped in front of Dawn blocking Willow’s path.

“What if I don’t?” Willow glared into Faith’s eyes refusing to be intimidated; the air grew heavy with tension and magic.

“Sorry baby,” Kennedy came up behind Willow and wrapped her arms around her neck and squeezed.

There was a gasp and a short struggle as Kennedy cut off the blood flow to Willow’s brain, her eyes rolled up into her head as her eyelids fluttered closed. As soon as Kennedy sensed that Willow was truly unconscious she laid her gently on the floor. Kneeling next to her girlfriend, she checked her pulse and breathing.

“I’m sorry,” Kennedy looked up at Faith, “she’s not really like that it’s the magics, you know?”

“Don’t sweat it sis,” Faith rested her hand on Kennedy’s shoulder for a moment before going back to check on Dawnie. “You okay, kid?”

“You mean, apart from feeling like a pincushion?” Dawn looked down at her forearms, they were covered with band-aids. “Yeah I’ll live, how’s Willow?”

“Hey, she’ll be okay,” Faith smiled encouragingly, “she’ll just have a headache when she wakes up is all.”

The group’s attempts at time travel had been a failure, not a complete failure but still a failure. Faith had travelled back into the past a dozen times; each trip had required a syringe full of Dawn’s blood. Each time Faith had gone back she’d found herself in a past that was subtly (sometimes not so subtly) different from the one she’d been aiming at; she told herself that she should have called a halt after the first trip.

Having stepped through the gate, Faith’d come face to face with Buffy. The problem was that this Buffy was on a mission to save her best bud, Faith, from falling into a time machine and being carried off into the future. Faith realised now that this should have been a warning. But they’d tried again and again and each time they tried Willow got a little more insane, Kennedy got more worried and Dawn got another hole in her arm.

“Right,” Faith turned away from Dawn and looked down at Kennedy who was cradling Willow’s head in her lap, “that’s it! If we want to get Buffy back we’re gonna have to find another way. Kennie,” Faith gestured at the gate way, “how do we destroy this thing?”

0=0=0=0

**The Future.**

“Traditionally,” Buffy called over her shoulder as George and herself climbed upwards, “prisoners are kept in the deepest dungeons.”

“So, why are we going up?” George wanted to know.

“Well,” Buffy paused to look back down the long steep ramp they’d been walking up, “so far these future-vamps haven’t shown much in the way of traditional vamp action…apart from eating people that is.”

“I bow to your superior knowledge on theses matters, Miss Summers,” George stood beside her and looked down at all the great machines that rumbled, clanked and groaned below them; he sighed heavily, “What a waste.”

“Sorry?” Buffy turned to continue their ascent.

“All this,” George gestured to the great expanse of machinery below them, “the product of hundreds of thousands of years of man’s ingenuity…all for nothing.”

“How do you know?” Buffy asked.

“What do you mean?” George paused in his climb to stare at the little blonde’s back, “Its obvious isn’t it? For all mankind has achieved in the end we might have well stayed safely in our caves.”

Once again, Buffy stopped and turned to face the Victorian adventurer.

“So,” Buffy smiled, “you worked all this out from spending a couple of days wandering ‘round a few square miles that the entire human race is a failure?”

“I’ve climbed to the top of the hill,” George pointed out, “these ruins go on forever, there’s no…”

“What about the stars,” Buffy turned to carry on climbing, “did you check all of them? In my time people were always talking about space ships and such. Come on George lets get going I think we’re nearly there.”

Thinking about what Buffy had said, George kept climbing, perhaps Buffy had a point, perhaps it was too early for him to write off the human race. Very soon the ramp levelled out and the came to a large chamber at one end of which stood a pair of large metal doors.

“Using my super-slayer-sense of direction,” Buffy said with not a little sarcasm, “I’d say we’re inside the bunker.”

“Look!” George pointed excitedly to two furrows in the sandy floor of the chamber.

Turning he followed the furrows with his eyes until they fell on his time machine; with a great shout of relief and triumph, George ran over to his machine. Fussing over the time machine like a proud father, George muttered and adjusted the incomprehensible workings of the machine. Smiling to herself, Buffy studied the ground by the great doorway.

In the red light she could make out a multitude of small foot prints, just the right size for the Little People. Here and there she also found slightly larger more animalistic looking footprints, obviously the future-vamps. Thinking hard, Buffy concluded that the future-vamp’s access to the hall of the Little People didn’t lead directly to the vamp’s underground world. The tunnels, or whatever, must surface near the hall. The vamps having selected their snacks must take them outside were the Little People are woken up. Then they were forced up here to meet their gristly fate; now where had the bloodsuckers taken them?

Casting around, Buffy followed the tracks to the wall of the bunker where there was a big, dark shaft, a lift shaft she surmised, leading back down into the dark. Looking around Buffy pressed down on a large lever; far below there was a loud clanking sound followed by high pitched squeaking as ill lubricated metal protested at having to move.

“What’s going on?” George called from the other side of the chamber.

“Elevator,” Buffy pointed to the great black hole in the wall, “I think it leads to where they’re holding the Little People. How’s the machine, will it get us home?”

“I think so,” George at least sounded confident, “there are still repairs to be made but these future-vamps as you call them, don’t appear to have damaged it in any way.”

“Musta got bored with it,” Buffy shrugged just as the screams of tortured metal stopped, “our ride.”

Leading the way into the red-lit interior of the lift, Buffy pushed down on the lever that seemed to be the only control in the lift itself. The lift car started to move.

“Going down,” Buffy announced cheerfully.

0=0=0=0

**The Rosenberg-Scarpone Residence, Middlesbrough.**

Switching off the light, Willow crossed the bedroom in the dark and climbed into bed. Slipping between the covers she snuggled up to the warm body that already lay there. Resting her head against Kennedy’s shoulder she sighed contentedly.

“Sorry about earlier,” she said quietly, “you know about going all ‘Dark Willow’ and such.”

In the silence that followed, Kennedy considered her answer.

“You know you really frightened Dawn?” Kennedy slipped her arm around Willow, “I, of course, wasn’t frightened in the slightest, neither was Faith…but you really did upset Dawn.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Willow started to defend and excuse her actions, “I was only…”

“…trying to help,” Kennedy finished the sentence for her, “From what I’ve heard you were only ‘trying to help’ when you nearly destroyed the world.”

“Sorry,” Willow mumbled.

“Sorry’s not good enough, sweetheart,” Kennedy replied sadly, “you’ve got to get help before you go off the deep end again. Isn’t there a ‘Witches Anonymous’ thing you can go to for help? At least stop doing the big spells that…that, you know, make you all scary Willow, hmm?”

“You don’t know what its like,” Willow sat up and looked at her girlfriend in the darkness, “the magics make me feel so strong and powerful and…”

“…and wanted?” Kennedy asked.

“Yeah,” Willow agreed quietly.

“I’ll always want you,” Kennedy reassured her, “but you’re still addicted to magic, Willow and I know what addiction can do to people.”

“No I’m not,” Willow pleaded, “I can control it, look I’ll be fine.”

“Whatever,” Kennedy rolled over and closed her eyes.

In the darkness, Kennedy wondered if she’d have the strength to do what might need to be done if Willow ever went dark again. She did indeed know what addiction could do to people, it had almost destroyed Willow once before. Addiction had almost destroyed her own life when she was a teenager; only the intervention of her ‘pig’ of a watcher had saved her; ‘Hi, I’m Kennedy and I’m an alcoholic’, she was amazed no one had worked it out, only Buffy knew and that was because misery loved company. 

Perhaps when Buffy got back…maybe she should…get to know her better? Kennedy thought about this idea for a minute or two; get to know Buffy better? No way!

0=0=0=0

**The Future.**

“Our stop, I think,” Buffy stepped out into the dark chamber where the lift had stopped.

There was the same dim red lighting here as everywhere else; what really stood out about this chamber was that scattered across the stone floor were the remains of countless Little People victims of future-vamp hunger.

“Oh my God!” George gasped in horror.

“I don’t think god has ever been here,” Buffy pointed out as she made her way delicately between the bones; her slayer hearing had picked something up further into the chamber.

Down in the ‘feeding chamber’, as Buffy was already calling it, the noise from the machinery was strangely muted, they must be deep under the factory floor. As she walked across the chamber trying not to look too closely at all the dry bones stacked up against the walls, Buffy could smell something. She could smell fear, the fear of people in terror, people who knew that they were going to die in a horrible, disgusting way.

“Look,” Buffy pointed to a corridor, the entrance to which was almost hidden behind an untidy pile of tiny, human skulls. “If Weena’s alive she’ll be down there.”

“How do you know?” George asked from behind her.

“Trust me George,” Buffy glanced over her shoulder at the man, “I know.”

More red lights illuminated a long corridor on either side of which, Buffy could make out iron bars blocking off the entrances to long narrow cells. The first couple on either side were empty, their doors wide open. Buffy examined the bars and the locks that secured the door to each cell. Something told her that these had been put in whenever the complex had been built, she didn’t know how she knew this but she did as sure as she knew the sun would rise tomorrow. Moving on down the line of cells she came to one and was greeted by a great wail of despair as the inmates mistook her for one of their tormentors.

“George!” Buffy cried to the man who was still staring horrified into one of the empty cells, “I’ve found them…at least most of them.”

The Little People survivors cowered at the far end of the cell, they huddled on the floor as if they thought that if they could make themselves small enough the vamps wouldn’t see them. Buffy grabbed hold of the bars of the cell door and pulled. The age old metal protested, but finally it gave up the struggle against slayer strength. The lock snapped and Buffy pulled the door open.

“Come on!” Buffy gestured frantically to the terrified Little People, “You’re free, now let’s get out of here.”

The Little People refused to leave the ‘safety’ of their cell.

“Damn-it-all!” Buffy was just about to go into the cell and drag the Little People out when she was halted by a call from George.

“Miss Summers!” George cried uncertainly, “We have company.”

Dodging back out into the corridor, Buffy saw George blocking the corridor with his fists up and ready to fight. Not more than a few yards beyond him were wall to wall Future Vamps.

“Miss Summers,” George gave ground slightly in the face of the Future Vamps snarling advance; in his own quiet way, George was a very brave man. “Get the Little People to the surface, I’ll deal with these-these foul fiends.”

“No George,” Buffy went to stand next to George, “I’ll deal with these you get everyone out of here, okay?”

“But Miss Summers!” George started to protest.

“But, nothing,” Buffy gave him a murderous smile as she pulled Mr Pointy from his hiding place, she was _so_ going to enjoy this. “Now move!”

Without waiting to see if George was obeying her orders, Buffy charged at the snarling mob of Future Vamps.

0=0=0=0

The fight was very much like a cartoon fight, but without the falling pianos. The Future Vamps were no match for Buffy either singularly or ‘en masse’. Grey bodies flew through the air to impact against the stone walls or the iron bars of the cells. Several times Buffy had to stop staking the vicious vamps because all the dust and ash was making her cough and was getting in her eyes so she couldn’t see. Buffy had fought the forces of darkness for years, she’d often been outnumbered and on various occasions outclassed by her opponents. The Future Vamps hardly made her breath heavily.

Running back along the corridor towards the lift, Buffy left a tail of vamp ash behind her as each step dislodged ash from her clothes and hair.

“Yuck!” Buffy spat gritty ash from her mouth, “I must have swallowed a gallon of vamp ash,” she patted at her clothing and clouds of ash rose around her. “Everything alright here?”

“Indeed they are, Miss Summers,” George smiled down at Buffy as he worked the lift control.

“Hey,” Buffy grinned at the inventor, “I see you’ve got a fan.”

Weena was clinging on to George as if she would never let go.

“Yes,” George pressed the lever and the lift started to move again, “Miss Weena is indeed alive and well.”

The lift made its long tortuous way to the surface; once inside the bunker Buffy and George herded the Little People out of the lift and started to search for the controls to the doors. As they searched Buffy paused, she cocked her head to listen and then went over to where the ramp to the lower levels entered the chamber.

“George!” she cried, preparing to defend the entrance, “You better get those doors open…soon!”

Below her, but coming closer by the second was a long grey column of Future Vamps. They were coming on at a dead run determined not to allow their lunch to escape

“Just…hold…them,” George was obviously struggling with the controls; Buffy didn’t turn to look because she was sort of mesmerised by the approaching horde of horrors, “Miss Summers, I’ll have this open in just a jiffy.”

“There we go again,” Buffy muttered crossly to herself; the Future Vamps would be on her in a second, “what the hell is a ‘jiffy’?”

The first wave of hideous grey things hit her and pushed her back into the chamber. Stabbing with Mr Pointy for all she was worth, Buffy dusted dozens of Future Vamps but still they came on forcing her ever backwards. Just as she was beginning to think that they’d overwhelm her there was a terrible screeching screaming sound from behind her. Her first thought was that the vamps had got past her and had fallen on the few remaining Little People.

Just as she was resigning herself to having failed she saw the first vamp explode into dust as the sunlight hit it. More and more vamps turned to ash in that strange silent explosion that signalled the death of the undead. The sunlight was shining directly through the door and down the ramp killing dozens of Future Vamps as they charged unheeding of the danger ever upwards. Realising that her shadow was in fact saving some vamps from a dusty death, Buffy moved to one side of the entrance and watched as more vampires collapsed into chaos.

Eventually, even these vampires realised that their cause was lost and stopped charging, they retreated down the ramp in a confused mass, back down into the red shot darkness of the cavern.

“My God!” George walked slowly over to where Buffy stood; he waved at the dust laden air in front of his face, “There must have been hundreds of them.”

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed, “last time something like this happen, we nearly all died.”

“You mean…” George looked in horror and respect at the diminutive woman beside him.

“Yeah,” Buffy nodded her head, “welcome to my life. As battles go this was hardly a foot note.”

0=0=0=0

Epilogue.

**Kenworth Street, Middlesbrough.**

The time machine came to a gentle stop in the old house, it was still night and all was quiet. True to his word, George had found tools in the museum to repair his machine, it had only taken him two or three days. In that time Buffy had done her best to find and block the Future Vamp tunnels into the Little People’s hall. In the time they’d spent before starting their journey home, neither George or Buffy had seen any sign of the Future Vamps.

“I shall go back, you know,” George told Buffy as she climbed off his lap, “back to the future.”

“I thought you would,” Buffy smiled as she clambered off the machine, “I didn’t think you were the sort of man who’d just leave those people to fend for themselves.”

“Indeed,” George agreed, “there’s a lot to be done, anyway,” he paused and held out his hand to Buffy. “It’s time to say goodbye, Miss Summers, its been a privilege to meet you.”

“Why thank-you kind sir,” Buffy was tempted to ignore George’s hand and give him a slayer strength hug; but she knew that would embarrass him so she took his hand and shook it politely, Giles would have been proud of her. “Its been an honour and a privilege to meet you too.”

“Jolly good then,” George hesitated before continuing his journey, “I say, Miss Summers, you wouldn’t consider joining me in the future would you?”

“Sorry George,” Buffy shook her head, “work to do here and I think Weena might have something to say if I came back with you.”

“Oh yes,” George laughed quietly, “yes indeed, well then, I’ll be off…don’t forget I’ve dropped you off just before dawn on the morning after you fell in with me and all our little adventures.”

“Yeah thanks,” Buffy nodded, “as far as all my friends are concerned I’ve only been gone a few hours.”

“Quite so,” agreed George, “I’ll leave you to it then, no time to waste, eh?”

Waving once George placed his hand on the control and started to fade away into the past.

“Nice guy,” Buffy told herself as she watched him vanish.

Looking around the room, Buffy shrugged and started to head for the door, had she got a patrol report to write!? Just as she was looking for the way out she noticed the time machine start to materialise. At first she thought George had forgotten something or was stopping off on his way back to the future. It was only when she noticed that the machine was totally undamaged that she realised there might be something wrong.

Hiding in the shadows, Buffy watched George arrive and climb out of his machine and start to take notes. She watched herself arrive, her argument with George, the twins bursting in and causing her and George to fall into the machine and start their adventure in the future.

The twins stood in shocked horror at what they’d seen happen; Buffy Summers had vanished and it looked like they’d made it happen.

“W-what do we do?” Gillian or possibly Maddy asked her sister.

“I-I don’t know,” Maddy or was it Gillian turned a horrified look on her sister, “Mr Giles will kill us! We’re _soooo_ in trouble!” they chorused.

“What’s up girls?” Buffy asked as she walked in from the hall; she suddenly found herself being hugged by two over excited teenage girls.

Moments later, as the twins chattered happily (now that they weren’t going to be grounded for life), Buffy glanced over her shoulder at the place that had held the time machine.

“Good luck, George,” she whispered before once again walking out into the dark.

The End.


End file.
